When Skies Are Grey
by LittletonPace
Summary: After the Battle of Fitchburg, Casey finds herself caring for baby Charlotte. Motherhood is the last thing she imagined for her future; but then again an alien invasion wasn't something she imagined either. (original character centric fic)
1. Northern Mockingbird

_- - - When Skies Are Grey - - _

_A/N: OC Centric - Casey Taylor _

_Setting: Starts at the Battle of Fitchburg (mid season 1 and 2), will continue through season 2 and into season 3._

_Summary: This is an idea that spawned from my friend Jemma and I noticing the lack of Sarah and Charlotte being seen or even mentioned at all in season 2. So, I invented this fic to keep at least Charlotte alive._

_Other than the death of Sarah, the first chapter details keep in canon with the Falling Skies: Battle of Fitchburg comic which I highly recommend to any fan of the show. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the character of Casey, everything else belongs to the creative minds of the Falling Skies team._

* * *

**Chapter 1: Northern Mockingbird**

Casey Taylor barely made it behind the brick pillar she was running for when a Mech blast shot right past her head and exploded into the gutter. Casey pressed her back against the pillar gasping for breath, but she didn't get to pause for long. Aliens were closing in on all sides, the time to hide had come and gone. Now, it was about surviving the next few minutes.

"Inside, inside!" Captain Weaver screamed as he ran past Casey. He saw that she had stopped, and pulled her arm forwards. "Get inside!"

Casey trailed after Weaver towards the building in front of them. The Captain was herding what remained of the 2nd Mass into a Post Office building. Fitchburg was a place where they had planned to rest and recharge. But before they could settle, Mechs and skitters had found them out and swarmed in. They were relentless. There was nothing the 2nd Mass could do but run.

Up the front steps of the Post Office, Casey followed Dr. Anne Glass through the door and together they swerved right and began climbing the stairs behind a handful of other members of the 2nd Mass. Casey ran in step with the doctor and didn't chance looking back, she was afraid of what she would see.

Three flights of stairs later, Casey and Anne came to a breathless stop. Weaver had arrived just before them and was already barking orders at his remaining soldiers as well as the Berserkers. The civilians were all grouped together and hunched down away from the windows to stay out of the aliens sights.

"I want two-man teams at the windows!" Weaver ordered, marching back and forth in front of the huddling survivors. "Snipers on the roof; we've got incoming!"

"Anne!" Uncle Scott suddenly cried from the floor. He was on the opposite side of the room to Anne and Casey. In his arms was a wounded young man whom Casey knew only as Philip. Lourdes was beside Uncle Scott trying to bandage a wound on Phillip's arm with a strip of torn fabric. "Help us!"

As Anne fled to her Uncle's side, a loud screech wailed from Casey's right. Baby Charlotte. She was screaming from within the carrier her mother, Sarah, had fashioned for her out of a sturdy blanket. The baby had been steadily crying since the group had started running, but every now and again she would let out a shrill screech. Casey was sure the aliens heard that friggin' noise. Not much that could be done about it, though. No more than what Sarah was already doing.

Sarah noticed Casey watching her. Her brown hair had fallen from its braid and was framing the beautiful angles of her face. To Casey, she smiled a nervous smile. "Do you think we're going to die?" She asked, her voice wavering.

Casey was still trying to catch her breath and couldn't form a coherent or assuring response. "I don't know," She panted, pulling her dark brown hair away from her damp neck and up into a ponytail. "I don't know."

Sarah smiled. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She held her baby as close to her body as she could. "I do."

"Skitters!" Hal Mason screamed from the window. Beside him, Maggie began firing her rifle with a look of fierce determination.

From where she was standing, Casey could see out the window into the street as the army of skitters surged towards the Post Office. Casey moved forwards to get a better look, flattening herself against the wall and peering around the windowsill just enough so she could see. There had to be a hundred of them scuttling through the street, climbing sideways along buildings and scurrying over cars as they gathered in the square outside.

Adrenaline pulsed through Casey's veins. She couldn't catch her breath and was gripping the window frame so tight she couldn't feel her fingers. She wanted something, a weapon. Hundreds of skitters were barrelling towards her and she had nothing in her arms to protect herself. She wanted a gun, wanted to shoot and fight like one of Weavers soldiers. Before they got to Fitchburg, she had been in the early stages of training with Weaver and some other members of the 2nd Mass looking for an upgrade in responsibility. But after the devastating loss of soldiers during the strike attack on the alien command tower in central Boston coupled with Tom Mason boarding an alien ship, training had stalled. And though Weaver often said it was best to learn while doing, Casey guessed now wasn't the time to ask him how to properly hold a rifle so she didn't pinch the skin on her fingers.

"Fire, everyone!" Weaver screamed. "Open fire!" His fighters didn't need to be told twice, they were already shooting.

"Good thing someone brought back all these guns, huh?" Pope and his Berserkers were loading up rifles and shotguns they had salvaged from a weapons cache at an army depot. It had been a successful raid, every fighter in the 2nd Mass was now armed with a new gun. And Pope was keen to make sure everyone knew he and his people were to thank.

Weaver ignored Pope's comment, and addressed his other fighters. "If they retreat, they'll form another airstrike," Even with the monumental task ahead of him, Weaver managed to keep his composure. "We have to keep them in the street!"

"That's our cue!" Pope said to his group. They all grinned and gave each other exuberant whoops.

"Pope?!" Weaver yelled in vain as the Berserkers legged it out of the room.

Casey peered around the edge of the window again and saw Pope and Tector emerge from the Post Office and each jump on a motorbike. Crazy Lee was right behind them, her wild mess of wiry hair bouncing as she ran. Boon and Lyle each hopped on a bike and kept on her tail. They all sped off towards the skitters, attracting their attention and keeping them from spreading too far from the Post Office so they couldn't return with stronger forces. But the Berserkers weren't at all frightened. They hollered and whooped like they were having the time of their lives. Casey supposed that in a way, they were.

Beside Casey, Maggie suddenly screamed. "Hal! It's Ben!"

From the window, Casey spotted the middle Mason son climbing out of a manhole in the centre of the street right out the front of the Post Office entrance. When Ben saw the 2nd Mass above him, he waved his arms gesturing at them to come down.

"He must have found an escape," Hal said as he peered at his brother through his rifle scope.

Weaver came to the window and knocked Casey aside a little. When Weaver saw Ben, his jaw clenched tighter. "Soldiers! Keep fightin'!" He yelled. "Everyone else, stay put. Hal, follow me down, now!"

As Hal and Weaver rushed past her, Casey sank to her knees intending to get out of the way. But instead she was immediately pulled back to her feet by Maggie. "You! Take this!" Maggie thrust a rifle into Casey's hands. "Point and shoot, doesn't matter if you don't hit any of them we just have to keep them busy!"

The rifle felt as heavy as a cinderblock in Casey's hands. She blankly stared at it, and then looked to Maggie who was setting up a massive and mean looking weapon that could only be a missile launcher.

"Just shoot!" Maggie ordered Casey when she noticed her watching.

With the way everyone was screaming, the lack of concern for preserving ammo, and Weaver putting so much faith in the Berserkers, Casey figured there was very little chance she was going to make it out of this building. So, what the hell? She'd wanted a gun, and now she had one. Casey stuck her rifle out the window and pulled back on the trigger.

The kickback made the rifle shudder in Casey's hands. For a fleeting second she thought she might drop it. Gripping the gun tighter, she peered down and saw the skitters trampling across the ground towards them. They moved with steady and determined speed. And that infuriated Casey. Closing one eye, she peered through her rifle scope, lined up a skitter in the crosshairs, and fired. A flare of bullets shot from her weapon joining the chorus of gunfire from the 2nd Mass soldiers. Skitters fell, but Casey didn't know if she was hitting any of them. As soon as she pulled the trigger, the recoil caused her to lose sight through the scope making it impossible for her to see what, if anything, she had hit.

And then beside Casey, with barely a word of warning, Maggie let off a missile. It whistled through the air and collided with an SUV tipped over on the road. The explosion caught a dozen or so skitters in its path and the flames spread to neighbouring cars creating fiery blasts that illuminated the square. Casey watched the skitters disappear under the waves of fire, and her adrenaline shot up again.

"Okay, Ben found us a way out!" Weaver bellowed as he burst back onto the level with the middle Mason son at his side. "Through the sewers. Small groups. I already sent one group down with Rick," He pointed at Anne. "Go with Ben. Right now!" Weaver snatched the gun out of Casey's hands. "You, too," He told her. "Everyone who isn't one of my soldiers, get to that sewer now!" He herded Anne, Uncle Scott, Lourdes, Phillip, Sarah and Charlotte and a half dozen other 2nd Mass members through the doorway and handed them over to Ben to lead downstairs.

They were at the entrance when Ben suddenly stopped still. "Oh, hell," He gaped out the window. "Mechs."

Over Ben's head, Casey saw the horizon was dotted with at least two dozen Mechs. She could hear their clunking footsteps even though they were a good half mile away. It didn't matter how far away they were, their guns had a long range. A handful had chased them into the Post Office, but not this many. And not at one time. There was no outrunning a whole squad of Mechs.

"Run!" Uncle Scott pushed everyone, including Casey who fell into Ben, forwards through the doors. "Just run!"

The smell of oil and smoke seared Casey's nostrils as she thundered down the Post Office front steps. No sooner had she set foot on the sidewalk when a bright blue Mech laser shone on the path in front of her. They weren't just coming from up ahead, there were Mech's closing in all around them.

Casey stopped in her tracks and fell heavily back onto the stairs just as Mech blast incinerated a hole in the footpath in front of her. Casey tucked herself behind a stone pillar and hoped the Mech hadn't seen her. It had, however, seen Philip who got the full blast of two Mechs. Casey watched, grimly entranced, as his body sort of folded over onto the ground. He had to have been dead before he even realized what had happened.

From where she was hiding, Casey could see that the other members of her little group had scattered. She saw some had reached the manhole with Ben while others had run back inside the Post Office. Casey watched Anne and Uncle Scott helping Lourdes run when a Mech spotted them. "Anne!" Casey screamed, but the sound of her voice was muted in the symphony of gunfire, motorbike engines and stomping Mechs.

The Mech trained its blue lasers on Lourdes and Anne's backs. Casey's scream caught in her throat as she saw Uncle Scott shove Anne and Lourdes forwards and put himself in the direct path of the Mech blast. It hit him full in the chest. Anne was watching in horror as her Uncle's torso exploded and the rest of him crumpled in a heap. She moved to help him, but Lourdes said something to her that made her keep running for the manhole.

Casey knocked her forehead against the pillar, swearing to herself. Uncle Scott was dead. He was a perfect member of the 2nd Mass. And he had just been obliterated. Casey suddenly realized maybe Sarah had been right, maybe they were all going to die here.

The blue laser lights took a sharp turn and the Mechs marched towards a couple of the Berserkers who were swerving their bikes through motionless cars and skitter bodies to belay their attention. Casey was preparing to take a run for the manhole when she heard that friggin' screech beside her. She quickly turned and found herself staring right into Sarah's frightened eyes.

"Run," Sarah urged Casey. One arm locked her child to her body, the other reached out and clutched Casey's fingers. "Run!"

Casey nodded, closed her eyes for a second to silently ask her mother to help her out, and then bolted from behind the pillar yanking Sarah along behind her. Casey focused on the manhole and nothing more, she just ran.

"Casey! Sarah!" Anne was screaming their names over and over again. She had made it inside the manhole and was keeping the cover open for them.

Casey didn't dare look back, but she could see the blue lights out of the corner of her eye. The Mech's had spotted her and Sarah, she knew it. A series of deafening thuds peppered the ground as Mech's fired and fired. Behind her, Casey heard Sarah make a strange gurgling noise. The ground shuddered so violently from the Mech blasts that Casey lost her footing and her grip on Sarah, then fell face first into the road.

Casey's cheek skidded on the street and instantly her skin burned. Her head felt light as she tried to roll over, her body ached in fierce, throbbing waves. An attempt to push herself up caused her chin to instantly hit the asphalt as her left wrist gave way. "Dammit!" Casey clutched her arm feeling the awkward angle of her broken bone beneath her skin.

White-hot pain radiated through her veins, but Casey forced herself up onto one knee when she heard that friggin' screech again. She turned and once more found herself staring into Sarah's eyes. Only this time they were wide open, frozen in shock. Lifeless. Sarah was lumped on her side, her neck twisted on a strange angle. The wound from the Mech bullet that had hit her back was still smoking. Charlotte had tumbled out of her mother's iron grasp and was lying on the street half out of her baby carrier.

The thunking of Mech-steps continued to shake the ground. Casey could see the bright blue Mech light bouncing around, searching for a moving target. Charlotte was screaming, the Mechs could surely hear the racket. Mech blasts would soon hit them.

A loud roar ripped apart the sky as an alien ship flew overhead. Casey caught sight of it a second before it dropped the bomb on the Post Office. The world went silent, and then exploded as the top half of Post Office was annihilated in a cloud of fire and ash. The pulse from the blast blew debris in every direction. Even the Mech's nearby lost their bearings. They stumbled on their feet and a couple even fell over.

Sensing her only chance, Casey reached out, unlooped the baby carrier from Sarah's neck and tucked Charlotte back inside it. Ignoring the pain of her broken wrist, Casey held Charlotte tight in her arms and ran towards the manhole where Anne was still waiting. As soon as Casey skimmed into the sewer and latched onto the ladder, Anne pulled the manhole cover closed. The sound of Mech's firing restarted above them. It seemed even louder than before.

Casey clung to Charlotte with the forearm of her broken wrist and edged down the ladder one handed. There was a small group of the 2nd Mass waiting when her feet hit the wet floor; but not nearly as many people as she had expected to see.

Lourdes looked tearfully from Charlotte up to Anne. Though she had clearly pieced together what had happened, she still asked, "Sarah?"

Anne, also tearful, shook her head. "She's gone," Anne sniffled. "Philip, Uncle Scott and Aunt Kate, too. And half our group ran back into the Post Office, who knows if they got out?"

Casey stared at Anne; she hadn't known Aunt Kate didn't make it out. Both Kate and Scott? What the hell?

"What about the others?" Lourdes asked. "Weaver, Hal, Maggie, all the fighters? The Berserkers?"

"They're still fighting," Anne said, wiping faint tears from her eyes. The woman radiated strength in combat.

A handsome man with long, long black dreadlocks stepped forwards. Casey didn't recognize him as a member of the 2nd Mass. "We wait," the man said. "Those things saw us come down here, we gotta run before they follow."

"This is Jamil," Ben introduced the man. "He's okay, he helped us find this way out."

Anne nodded. "Well, Jamil's right, Weaver would kill us all if we died waiting for him," She gestured for the group to follow her. "Let's move, fast."

Casey slipped the strap of the baby sling over her neck so Charlotte nestled against her body. The baby finally seemed cried out and instead made fussy little grunting noises. Casey wondered if she had any clue what had just happened. The kid was only a few weeks old. What a way to enter the world, having intergalactic bastards kill your mother. At least on that level, Casey could relate to her.


	2. Be Like Water

**Chapter 2: Be Like Water**

Everyone was injured.

Weaver had dubbed it the Battle of Fitchburg, and no surviving member of the 2nd Mass had come through unscathed. Over a hundred people dead which, according to Weaver, was one of their biggest losses. Some of victims, like Philip, Casey hadn't known much about aside from their names. But she noticed their absence. Then there were people like Aunt Kate, Uncle Scott and Sarah, whom everyone had known. Casey wasn't used to so few people being around. The 2nd Mass was usually a lively hub of chattering conversations, now it was just a bunch of muttering people quietly suffering through their pain.

Casey sat in a line of the injured waiting to be seen by Anne and Lourdes. After igniting a huge fire to destroy Fitchburg as well as all the skitters and Mechs still in there, the 2nd Mass had fled to a high school gymnasium on the edge of Connecticut. Anne and Lourdes had created a makeshift triage clinic in the locker room with what little supplies they had managed to find in the gym. Curtains separated the badly wounded from those with minor injuries, but they didn't drown out the sound of their screams. Or the smell of burnt flesh.

Charlotte was dosing in Casey's lap still nestled in her torn and dirty baby sling, but she didn't seem to be able to sleep and kept wriggling as if she wanted to be set down. Casey had checked the baby for cuts, but she didn't see anything bleeding and Charlotte didn't seem to have any burns. But she was naturally pink anyway. All babies looked weirdly pink when they were that tiny, didn't they? Surely Charlotte would be screeching if she was in pain?

As her adrenaline wore off, Casey started to feel the intense pain of her own injuries. Simply swivelling on her seat sent stings throughout her body. She worried she'd broken something else besides her wrist, something internally. And every time she coughed her chest pulse with a sharp ache. But everybody seemed to be suffering with the cough. The smoke from the Fitchburg blaze seemed to affect them all that way. Aside from the coughing and her wrist, there was a patch of skin burning across her cheek right where she had skidded on the asphalt. Casey didn't want to see her reflection for fear of seeing just how much of her face had been shaved off. But no one walking past who looked at her screamed or reeled back in horror, so she hoped that meant it wasn't too repulsive.

"Casey?" Anne stuck her around the locker room door. The doctor was flustered and overworked, but still she managed to smile as she called Casey in.

With a pained grunt, Casey got to her feet and entered the triage clinic. She could hear people whimpering in pain, begging for help, but Anne had set up another curtain to keep the gravely injured separate. Casey was glad of it, she wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing a burnt corpse again. What she'd seen at Fitchburg was enough.

Lourdes came out from behind the curtain looking as haggard as Anne, but also still managing a smile. She directed Casey to take a seat while Anne took Charlotte from Casey's arms. "You guys seem pretty set up in here," Casey winced as Lourdes gently felt around her swollen wrist.

"The scouts found an ambulance out in the street. And we found some First Aid Kits here at the gym," Lourdes told her. "Really, the most we can do is sew cuts, clean wounds, and doll out aspirin for the pain." She gently squeezed Casey's wrist. "Broken," She declared the obvious. "Lucky you, wrapping broken bones is my forte." She smiled and got to work with the bandage. "How's your breathing? Still coughing from the smoke?"

"No, it's better now that we're inside," Casey said. "Never thought I'd breathe better in a gym."

Lourdes finished securing the bandage on Casey's wrist and then poured disinfectant on a cotton wipe and dabbed it on Casey's cheek. "You got some pretty fine road rash," Lourdes cringed as she worked. "This is gonna sting."

Casey winced and instinctively scrunched up her face, which only made the stinging worse. "Dammit," she grunted through clenched teeth.

"She seems just fine," Anne had rewrapped Charlotte in a clean towel and then put her back in her sling. "She's alert, not lethargic, her heartbeats strong, breathing sounds clear," She patted the baby's back and rocked her from side to side. "Very lucky baby." Anne slipped the strap of the baby sling over Casey's shoulder and set Charlotte on her lap. "I'll keep checking on her every couple of hours. Are you okay with her?"

"Yeah," Casey said vaguely. She was busy adjusting the baby in the crook of her arm as Lourdes finished sticking the bandage to her cheek. Charlotte was light as a feather, but she was awkward to hold with one busted wrist.

"Take these for the pain," Anne poured two Aspirin into Casey's palm. "Sorry they're not stronger."

Casey took the pills and the bottle of water Lourdes offered her and was then quickly rushed out of the clinic as two men came in carrying a woman who seemed to be bleeding from just about everywhere.

Outside the triage, Casey wasn't sure where she should go. There were little groups of people everywhere, but they seemed to be doing their own thing. One half of the gym had been designated for sleeping, the other was members of the 2nd Mass organizing supplies. Food, clothing, blankets. There wasn't a lot left after Fitchburg.

Casey wandered towards the sleeping section looking for someone who could help her with Charlotte. There were other kids in the 2nd Mass with adults taking care of them, Casey needed to find one before the baby needed something. Then, as if to spite her, Charlotte promptly opened her eyes, peed through her baby sling and started to scream.

"Dammit," Casey turned and headed for the back fire escape. She didn't want to add to everyone's trouble sleeping, the sounds of agony from the triage were bad enough without Charlotte's screeching going along with it.

The air outside was cold, so Casey tried to rearrange Charlotte's towel so it closed in around her neck. Lourdes had done a great job on wrapping Casey's wrist, it didn't hurt as much, but it was so firmly strapped that Casey could barely use her fingers. It was like wearing a mitten.

Casey walked Charlotte out to where the remaining vehicles of the 2nd Mass were parked. Aside from a few guards on watch who wouldn't be sleeping anyway, no one was out there to be bothered by the crying. Almost nothing was out there aside from the handful of cars that had made it out of Fitchburg.

"Ok, we're outside now," Casey said to Charlotte as she patted her back the same way she'd just seen Anne do. "See, out in the air? Air is good, right?" Charlotte's response was to cough, and spit up all over Casey's shoulder. Casey grimaced at the gross feeling of wet liquid splashing on her skin and through her clothes. "I hate you, Charlotte." The baby wailed loudly in response.

"Her Mama know you talk to her like that?" Pope, was drinking beer in the back of a scorched pickup truck seemingly enjoying watching Casey's struggle with the baby.

"Sarah's dead," Casey said flatly. "A mech blew a hole in her back."

Pope gave her an odd look. "You're kinda dark."

"I'm covered in pee and vomit," Casey snapped. "And she won't stop crying."

"Walk with her," Pope dismissed her and went back to his beer. "She'll shut up eventually. Worked with my kids."

Casey stopped rocking Charlotte. "You have kids?" She headed straight for the truck. "Then you have to help me." Until Anne or Lourdes or someone else could take Charlotte, a parent would certainly be better equipped with the baby than Casey.

Pope snorted his beer. "I'm not helping you babysit."

"I can't take care of a baby," Casey argued.

Pope stared at her funny. "Why are you tellin' me?"

Shifting Charlotte to her other arm, Casey huffed to herself, reconsidered and turned away from Pope. Probably not a good idea to leave a baby with a drunk, belligerent stranger. It confirmed to her that the sooner Anne or Lourdes came for the baby, the better for everyone. Especially Charlotte. Casey didn't have great instincts with when it came to choices for a baby.

"Give her a bath," Pope's voice called out behind Casey.

Casey turned back to him, Charlotte squealing over her shoulder. "What?"

"Warm bath in a dim room," He settled back in the truck and closed his eyes. "It'll knock her out."

Seeing as how she was covered in grossness and needed a shower anyway, Casey decided it couldn't make things worse and made her way back inside the gym to the girl's locker room. Hal and Maggie had found a few generators in a utility closet and hooked them up to some lights for the clinic and the water system in one of the bathrooms. Most of the 2nd Mass had already showered and were now attempting to find a comfortable section of floor to sleep on, so the bathroom was empty.

Casey didn't want to put Charlotte on the floor, so she laid her in her towel and baby carrier in one of the basins. The water pressure in the shower wasn't great, but after a few seconds of Casey twisting the HOT faucet, it ran warm. Casey stripped off her gross clothes and unwrapped Charlotte from her towel. She was all spindly and pink, she looked like a scrawny little alien. Her face kept scrunching up and she would make a coughing noise like she was about to launch into another bout of screams.

Possibly the only thing Casey knew about newborns was they couldn't support their own heads, so she slid one hand under Charlotte's neck and her bandaged hand under Charlotte's backside and lifted her to her bare chest. Together, they stepped into the shower which was already misting with steam, and Charlotte stopped her cry-coughing almost immediately.

Casey smiled to herself, happy to finally only be hearing the sound of rushing water. No baby crying, no burnt people sobbing, no screams, no gunfire. Just water. She wondered if maybe that's all Charlotte had wanted, silence. Well, silence plus a shower.

Casey stood to the side of the shower stream and caught water in her hand to wash Charlotte's teeny body. The infant rested her head against Casey's shoulder and made gentle whimpers that thankfully didn't turn into full on cries. Casey and Charlotte stood there until the water ran cold, just enjoying the silence together. But the baby stayed quiet even when Casey shut off the shower, wrapped the baby in a clean towel and rested her back in the basin. Casey thought it seemed like a pretty novel place to rest the kid since it prevented her from rolling out onto the floor.

With Charlotte contained, Casey was able to inspect herself in the mirror for the first time since Fitchburg. The road rash on her face wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, the bandage Lourdes had fixed on her cheek covered just above her jaw and just below her cheekbone. Casey had imagined it oozing blood like she'd been stuck by a thousand little needles, so to see her face in basically in one piece was comforting. Her richly dark brown hair had been singed from the fire and even after a shower it still looked brittle. She would have to cut off the ends, but she'd been meaning to cut it for a while anyway. When it grew to her waist it was always time for a trim. She had inherited fast-growing hair from her mother.

In fact, all her features were her mother. Thea called her daughter a perfect combination of both her parents. Her mother's gentle face and chocolate coloured hair, bright eyes, pouting lips and defined jaw, plus her father's cranky disposition. Mike claimed he had earned his short fuse after thirty years as a college football coach, and he encouraged it in his daughter. "_Don't be a doormat, Casey_," he'd say. "_Let people know when they're pissing you off. No one has the right to make you feel that way."_

It always sounded better when he said it that way, and not used words like "abrasive", "disinterested" and "easily distracted", words that often appeared on all of Casey's school report cards. And that job performance review from _Denny's_ that had hit the trifecta. It didn't matter how many times she tried to explain she wasn't disinterested, that it was just the way her expression set that made her appear that way.

Casey blinked at her reflection for a few more seconds and then chose some clean clothes generously donated by members of the 2nd Mass who had been lucky enough to escape Fitchburg with more than just their lives. Casey dressed in an off-the-shoulder striped t-shirt and pair of jeans that were too long and too tight, then scooped her wet hair up into a messy bun and looked down at Charlotte. She was curled up in a way that weirdly made Casey think of a cooked chicken. Perhaps that was just hunger at work. All Charlotte's limbs were sort of folded into her body, except for one hand which was resting just by her head in a fist. She looked so comfortable Casey was almost envious. Being born during an alien invasion had its advantages; you could sleep through anything.

-x-


	3. Hunger Strike

**Chapter 3: Hunger Strike**

On her twenty-sixth birthday, Casey had gone a little crazy. When her friends had discovered Casey had never been on a booze cruise, they booked one for her birthday and Lord did they drink. Casey didn't remember much of that night other than throwing up over the side of the boat and waking up on the bathroom floor of a twenty-four hour diner. Now five years later, it was that hazy memory that accompanied Casey when Charlotte's cries woke her up as she had once again fallen asleep on a bathroom floor.

Since Charlotte had fallen asleep in the basin the night before, Casey hadn't dared chance lifting her out of it and waking her up. So instead, Casey left the baby in the sink lined with towels and then made a place for herself right underneath. Casey wasn't surprised that she didn't sleep well. The aspirin had worn off and her wrist was aching. Plus, every now and again someone would walk into the bathroom and wake her. But not Charlotte, she kept right on sleeping in that sink for two whole hours.

Despite Charlotte's crying, Casey gave the kid credit for not screaming bloody murder this time, but she was clearly unhappy to have woken up. Her face kept scrunching up and every few moments she would let out a whine. Casey figured that, like herself, Charlotte was just hungry, so she scooped up the baby and went in search of Anne.

A small number of the 2nd Mass were still sleeping on the gymnasium floor, but most of them were awake and helping the injured patients. Seemingly eager to make a place for himself amongst the 2nd Mass, Jamil was among those aiding the sick. He was helping Lourdes lift the weaker patients onto thin, blue gym mats and covering them with blankets. He was certainly going the right way about gaining everyone's trust.

There was noticeably less cries of pain coming from the triage locker room than there had been two hours before. Casey wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Probably not, she doubted all of those injured people had miraculously recovered in a couple of hours.

The triage was where Casey found Anne bent over an unconscious male patient who had been so severely burned in the Fitchburg fire that half his face was missing. Anne looked frazzled and overworked, and Casey knew just by looking at her that she hadn't stopped working since they arrived at the gym. Which probably mean that Lourdes hadn't either, so Casey's chances for help were limited to some very tired people.

Charlotte's cries had surely announced Casey's entry well before she'd come in, but she called for the doctor anyway. "Anne?"

"Hey," Anne gave Casey a quick glance but was focused on bandaging a section of her patients blackened shoulder. "Everything okay? How's the wrist?"

"Hurts. But I can deal," Casey said. "Can you feed Charlotte?"

In an instant, Anne dropped her hands and stood up straight. "Oh, God. I didn't even think." Her kind eyes fell onto Charlotte. "We don't have anything for her." She paled and held a hand to her chest. "Obviously, Sarah's been feeding Charlotte. I just didn't think of it." Anne took a deep breath, as if to steady herself. "Okay. Okay, we'll need to run for supplies. She'll need formula for a newborn, bottles, it'd be safer to get something lactose free in case she's allergic. And she'll need blankets and clothes, it's going to get colder. And maybe a pacifier, it would soothe her..."

Casey's mind swam with all the foreign information. It dawned on her that getting Charlotte fed was going to be a hell of a lot harder than she had first anticipated.

* * *

With Charlotte in the crook of her arm, Casey made her way out to the front of the gym. It was just past sunrise and the day was warming. Outside, a handful of the soldiers were loading up a couple of the trucks preparing to head out. Casey marched passed them towards the hastily constructed tent that Weaver had set up for his soldiers to plot their next move. Anne had said she would talk to Weaver, but given that she was dressing a man's burns at the time, Casey volunteered to take care of it.

Casey peered inside the tent and saw Captain Weaver with his back to her, talking with Hal, Maggie, Dai and Anthony, as well as Pope and all of his Berserkers.

"Captain Weaver?" Casey ventured.

Weaver held a hand up in her direction to silence her. "We need to get on the road," He spoke to his soldiers without looking towards Casey. "I'll talk with Dr. Glass and see when's the quickest we can get those burn victims movin'."

"What? No." Casey's voice went unheard, and Charlotte began to fuss louder. They couldn't go anywhere until Charlotte ate, that was just a fact. And one Casey was hoping she wouldn't have to explain to Weaver.

"We'll need more vehicles; somethin' to transport the wounded. A bus, maybe," Weaver continued. "I don't want us to settle here, we should put more distance between us and Fitchburg before we think about puttin' our feet up."

"We can't leave yet," Casey tried again, growing quickly irritated that Weaver wasn't acknowledging her, or the crying infant in her arms.

"Plus we need to start building up our supplies again. Food, meds, vehicles. So, get to work," Weaver said to his crew. "No time to rest."

"If we leave, this baby's gonna starve to death." Casey's statement had her desired effect. Weaver turned right around to face her, as did all the other soldiers.

Pope scoffed. "Told you you were dark,"

"She needs food," Casey told a stern-eyed Weaver. Charlotte made a loud whinge as if she agreed. "And she can't eat watered down soup or beef jerky."

Weaver exhaled and closed his eyes. "I sympathize with you, Cassie-"

Annoyance flashed through Casey's veins, her name was easy to remember. "Casey."

"-But I won't send people back to what's left of Fitchburg."

"Not people. Me." Casey thought on her feet. "And not Fitchburg. Here. We found a gym easy enough, surely there's some place around here to get baby food?"

"Skitters could be tracking us," Weaver countered. "And any place with food will have been wired with traps or ransacked."

"They have formula at pharmacies," Maggie interjected. "People would steal meds first, not baby food." She locked eyes with Casey. "I'll go with you."

Weaver held up his hands between the two women. "Now, hold on-"

"Captain, you and I were there when Charlotte was born," Maggie firmly reminded him. "You really think Sarah would put finding a bus over feeding her child?"

Captain Weaver's face softened. He looked at Charlotte, then reached out and stroked the fine hairs on her head. She was so small he could have held her in one hand with no trouble. "Alright," He nodded to Casey. "But I'd feel a whole lot better with more than one gun out there."

"I'll come, too," Hal Mason spoke up. "We can take the bikes, be back by dark."

"Whoa, now," Pope cut in. "I know you're not talking about the bikes my crew and I have been keeping up to scratch?"

"You don't like it, you can go with them," Weaver said keeping his back to Pope. "Casey," He rested a hand on her shoulder. "You get that baby what she needs and come back. No dawdling, no scouting, no nothing." He looked to Hal and Maggie. "That goes for all of you, got it?"

Casey gave him a wry smile and nodded once. "Yes, sir."

* * *

While Casey was searching for somewhere better for Charlotte to sleep than a bathroom sink, she found a helpful hand in Matt Mason. The young boy met her when she came back inside, and showed her to an office in the back of the gym on the opposite side to the triage centre. Casey had passed the office door a few times and assumed it had been leading to a supply closet or something, but instead it lead to a small space where Matt told Casey he and his brothers had spent the night.

"There's not a lot of room," Matt admitted as he shifted aside a couple of bags. "But it's quiet."

Casey didn't think she could have fit her old king size bed into the office even if she tried, but a quiet space was quiet space. The Mason brothers had removed the desk and computer out into the hall and placed gym mats on the ground so the whole floor was covered in firm, plastic sponge.

"I put my stuff in here," Matt held a plastic clothes basket out to Casey. It had "Clean Uniforms" written on the side of it in black marker and a few of Matt's things inside it including a notebook labelled as his journal. "I thought we could put towels on the bottom so its soft and Charlotte could sleep in it?"

Casey frowned, considering it. It seemed like a good idea to her. Just like with the basin, Charlotte couldn't roll out of the basket. "Awesome," She declared with a grin. Matt set the basket on the ground, removed his things and helped Casey line the bottom with a couple of bright blue towels. Casey set Charlotte in her new bed and then, seeing as how Matt was helping her anyway, nudged the boy with her shoulder. "Can you do me a huge favour and watch her while I go and get her some food?"

"Me?" Matt looked surprised.

"Why not?" Casey shrugged. "You'll probably be better with her than I am anyway. If she starts crying really loud, just get Anne or Lourdes."

"Okay!" Matt agreed enthusiastically and knelt down beside the basket. Charlotte reached out her spindly arms for Matt and then quickly pulled her hands back and gurgled.

Since they seemed to instantly hit it off, Casey left them to it and went over to the triage centre. Anne was already waiting for her. "I made you a list," Anne handed Casey a folded up piece of paper. "But basically anything you find that says newborn on the box is worth grabbing."

"Okay," Casey slipped the list into the back pocket of her jeans. "I asked Matt to watch her. They're in that office," She pointed out the door to Anne. "They seemed pretty happy, I told him to come to you if there was a problem."

Anne smiled. "Great, I'll check on them as often as I can." She squeezed Casey's shoulder and then slipped an empty satchel bag around her neck. "Good luck. And hurry back."

* * *

Out the front of the gymnasium, Casey found Maggie, Hal, two motorbikes and to Casey's surprise, Pope. "Thought you weren't gonna help?" Casey reminded him with a frown.

"All about my bikes, sweetheart," Pope didn't look at her and just kept testing the steering on the black motorcycle he was straddling.

Casey was unconvinced that was his main focus. She had witnessed the handful of times he had abandoned the 2nd Mass for some random reason only to show up again. If it was any other time she wouldn't care, but she needed to get food back for the baby. "You're a flight risk." She said to the back of Pope's head. To this, he turned and raised his eyebrows at her.

"That's why _I'm _taking the Harley," Hal spoke up. "Don't worry. He won't ditch without it."

Casey was still doubtful, something Maggie seemed to notice. "Just bring him," She said to Casey. "It's not worth the headache."

Casey got the distinct feeling it still _would_ be a headache, but they were losing time. And Pope was a good shot and a smart fighter. It had been him who had figured out they could use the Mech's own bullets against them. They would never have gotten out of John F. Kennedy High School if it weren't for him, which Casey found annoying because now Pope had a valid reason to be smug.

"Fine," Casey sighed, then addressed Hal. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Dai scouted the perimeter when we found the gym," Hal said as swung a leg over the Harley. "Small town a few blocks away. Diners, book store, a gas station."

"There'll be a pharmacy there," Maggie said confidently as she slid on the bike behind Hal and held his waist.

Pope looked at Casey expectantly. "You waiting for an invitation?"

Casey's jaw automatically clenched as it did when she was irritated - she wasn't thrilled with her bike partner - but she gave in and draped her leg over the back of Pope's bike.

"You might wanna hang on," He said over his shoulder through the tangled strands of his shaggy black hair.

"Fine." Casey reluctantly gave in, scooted forwards and hugged her arms around his waist. "But just so you know," she added. "Call me sweetheart again? I'll shave your head."

Pope gave her an unimpressed grunt in reply as he kicked the engine over. "You know, your whole dark thing is getting old."

"Just drive-" Casey's words were lost to the wind as Pope sped off deliberately too fast forcing Casey to cling to him much tighter than she would have liked.


	4. Everything Must Go

**Chapter 4: Everything Must Go**

The ride to the pharmacy was relatively quick and alien-free. Hal and Maggie led the way with Casey and Pope trailing right behind them. Casey had been on a total of zero motorbikes in her life. Her time travelling with the 2nd Mass had mostly been in trucks or on foot. But she suppressed the desire to scream and thus calling attention to the fact she was a biking and scouting novice, and just clung to Pope until they finally stopped.

The street was black and empty aside from a couple of abandoned cars hunched against the gutter. The group pulled their bikes to a stop right out the front of the pharmacy. The windows were smashed and glass littered the sidewalk making it difficult to approach without making a noise.

Maggie lead the way inside the pharmacy first with her rifle poised, Casey followed right behind her armed with only a flashlight and the empty satchel bag Anne had given her. From what Casey could see from the front of the store, the pharmacy had been pretty well scoured since the invasion, but it seemed as though drugs and food had been the main target for looters. The candy bars and snacks at the counter were gone, too, and the cash register had been smashed on the ground with nothing left in it but a few pennies. The shelves of bandages and Aspirin were bare, but a lot of the other, non-medicinal shelved stock had been left behind. Knocked about and scattered on the ground, but left behind.

"This place isn't as ransacked as I thought it'd be," Hal noted as he and Pope came inside.

"Guess when aliens invade no one thinks to steal a box of tissues," Maggie lowered her weapon and started inspecting items on the shelves. "Grab everything you can," she picked up a discarded backpack off the ground and started loading it up. "Who knows when we'll be able to do this again?"

"I'll check the back," Hal volunteered and made his way around the counter to where the stronger medicines were stored.

Casey followed Maggie to the nursery aisle and began to stuff her satchel bag with cartons labelled Newborn, like Anne had suggested. Casey filled her bag with bottles, rubber nipples, bibs, tubes of cream, bottles of lotion, pacifiers, flannel jumpsuits, baby socks and even something called a receiving blanket. She also picked up a teething ring, sippy cup, and some stuff labelled Toddler figuring it just made sense to take what they could, while they could.

"You know she won't have teeth for like six months, right?" Pope said from beside Casey as she grabbed the teething ring. Instead of helping gather items, Pope was leaning against the shelf and watching the others work.

"Yeah, and where will we be in six months?" Casey replied. She managed to force the zip of her overloaded bag closed and looped it over her shoulder. The strap cut into her neck the bag was so heavy.

"This is all the formula on the shelf," Maggie held out two metal cans with smiling babies on the label. "I'll check out the back." She passed the cans to Casey and followed the path Hal had taken behind the counter.

Casey searched the ground and found another empty backpack from a tipped over display of Back To School supplies. "So, you have kids?" Casey asked Pope as she packed the cans into the new bag.

Pope gave her a lingering look; as if her question was completely bizarre. "Two. Boy and a girl."

"What are their names?"

Pope shifted on the spot and turned his back to her. "None-Of and Your-Business."

Casey gave him a very forced smile. "Nice." Back to searching the shelves, Casey's eyes fell upon a selection of stuffed toys clipped together on a hook. One of them appeared to be a purple and blue alien. "Huh," Casey unhooked the alien toy. It was giving her a big goofy smile and made a squeak when she squeezed its middle. "Shame they aren't this cute in reality."

"Jackpot!" Maggie announced from the front of the store.

Casey pocketed the purple alien and joined Hal and Maggie at the front counter. They each carried a cardboard box full of formula cans.

"Any medicine?" Casey asked as she and Maggie began stocking up the formula into each of their bags. It was all labelled Newborn.

"Some antibiotics," Hal said. "Anne could used whatever we can get."

"Can we go now?" Pope asked.

"You could help and carry a bag," Hal pointed out as he took the bag of baby formula cans from Maggie and loaded it onto his back. "I'd like to think even _you_ would want to help a baby."

"Why, because I think your half-breed of a brother-"

_HRRRRMMMMMMMmmmmm_

_ Clunk-clunk-clunk!_

_ hhhhrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm_

"Mechs! Get down!" Pope grabbed the back of Casey's collar and yanked her to the floor behind the counter.

Casey pressed her bag against the counter as hard as she could. Through the storefront window, she could see the blue lights from the Mech's coming down the street towards the pharmacy. The groaning hum they emitted made Casey's bones vibrate and her heart hammer. The last time she'd seen a Mech it had blown a hole in Sarah and left her baby an orphan.

"Think they followed us?" Casey whispered to Pope who was pressed back against the counter in the same way she was. Casey was relieved that, at least in the face of death, Pope's snarky demeanour seemed to disappear.

"Nah, they're coming from the other direction," Pope replied under his breath. "Maybe they're just doing rounds, scoping out the area."

Then suddenly the noise stopped. It didn't fade away, it didn't drown out. It just stopped. Like the Mechs had been turned off. Everyone was silent. Through the glass counter, Casey could see Hal and Maggie huddled down but she couldn't hear anything over the thumping of her heart in her eardrums.

_HRRRRMMMMMMMmmmmm_

_ Clunk-clunk-clunk!_

_ hhhhrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm_

The sound of the Mech's starting up again broke through Casey's eardrums, and thankfully the aliens kept on moving. Their metal footsteps slowly disappeared down the street, but even when she couldn't hear them anymore Casey didn't want to get up. It was only when Maggie pulled her to her feet that she moved.

"I say we roll the bikes for a couple of streets before we start up the engines," Hal suggested. "They hear us, they'll tail us right back to the gym."

"Might be better if we take a long way back," Maggie added.

"Forget about the starving baby, Maggie May?" Pope said to her. "No hold-ups."

"Why don't we talk more about it instead of getting out of here?" Casey interjected, double checking that her overstuffed satchel bag hadn't split open in the scuffling to hide from the Mechs.

"Wait here," Hal readied his rifle and edged towards the front of the store, then jogged into the shadows. He came back a minute later gesturing at the others to follow. "Let's go."

Maggie waited for Casey to go in front of her before she headed for the door. Outside, Hal started securing the bags to the back of the bikes. Casey looked back inside the store to make sure they hadn't forgotten a bag, and then she saw that goofy smiling alien toy staring at her from the floor. It must have fallen out of her pocket when Pope had yanked her down.

"Crap." Casey dropped her bag in Pope's hands and hurried back inside despite Maggie's hisses that she stay put. Casey scooped up the toy and reached up to the counter to pull herself to her feet. Her hand rested on something cold and slimy. By the time she looked to see what it was, the scaly skitter claw was already reaching out for Casey's face.

Casey shouted out in surprise and swiped the claw away, but it lunged for her shoulder with its other claw. A wave of bullets rang out behind Casey and sank right into the skitter's body. It lost its grip on her and stumbled back. Maggie appeared over Casey's shoulder, pointed her rifle right at the skitter's head and fired. It made a final groan, and fell still.

"You okay?" Maggie asked Casey, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Casey held up the alien toy in response, hoping that no skitter muck had splashed on it.

Maggie raised one eyebrow at her. "You almost got killed by an alien, for an alien?"

Casey smirked nervously and held the toy over her heart. "I like this one."

"Chat later, ladies," Pope called from the doorway where he and Hal were standing with their weapons drawn. "There'll be more of them comin'."

* * *

Casey could hear Charlotte crying before the bikes pulled to a stop outside the gym. They had did as Hal suggested and walked - well, ran - the bikes for a couple of blocks, then circled the neighbourhood to make sure they weren't being followed. Casey knew the others would have preferred waiting longer to be positive, but that wasn't an option. The baby was hungry.

Sliding off Pope's bike, Casey grabbed the bag of formula tins along with her overstuffed satchel and jogged through the front entrance of the gym. All she had to do was follow the wails to the triage centre where Lourdes was rocking a screaming Charlotte back and forth and patting her backside to try and soothe her.

An exasperated Lourdes looked positively thrilled to see Casey. "She hasn't quieted down since you left," Lourdes swapped Charlotte into Casey's arms and took her bags.

"Casey, thank God!" Anne appeared looked extremely relieved to see her. She was sweating and looked exhausted. "Lourdes, can you watch Frank for me, please?"

Lourdes nodded and fled behind the curtain. Anne unpacked a bottle and a formula tin from the backpack. She spooned some formula into the bottle, then added water from her own canteen, capped on the top of the bottle and shook it until it combined. "Here," She presented the bottle to Casey. "Hold her up a little and try to keep air out of the bottle," Anne instructed. "Or she'll get gassy."

"You know what to do," Casey pointed out as Charlotte hungrily took the bottle and began sucking down the formula. "You should feed her."

"I can't, I have five critical burn victims. Here, take a seat," Anne directed Casey to a chair and sat her down. "After she eats, she'll need to be burped." Anne laid a cloth over Casey's shoulder. "Just hold her up and pat her back. After that she'll probably just sleep."

Casey just nodded and tilted the bottle so no air would go into Charlotte's mouth. Already the baby's eyes were closing, but she continued to suck on her bottle. Her cheeks flushed pink and she made sweet little gulping sounds.

"This formula should last at least a couple of months," Anne said looking over the tins. "It's easy to mix up, two scoops in the bottle and fill it up with water. Shake it 'til it's combined, and _voila_. Oh, good," Anne found a pacifier in Casey's bag. "Give her this when she finishes eating."

"Anne?" Lourdes stuck her head around the curtain. "Frank's stitches just burst."

"I'll be right there." Anne gave Casey a reassuring smile. "You're doing fine. When she sleeps, get some rest yourself. You look like hell."

When Charlotte finished her bottle, she started whimpering so immediately gave her the pacifier. Charlotte went right back to dozing. Casey wanted to get her to her bed as soon as possible so she could get some sleep herself. She tried to repack her bag one-handed but it was tricky, her broken wrist kept seizing.

"Lemme help," Maggie appeared at the door, repacked the bags and lifted them both onto her back.

"Thanks," Casey rearranged her grip on Charlotte without waking her and followed Maggie to the office. Matt wasn't there. "Did you see Matt anywhere?" Casey asked Maggie.

"I was with you," Maggie reminded her as she stashed the bags in a corner. She smiled when she saw the bed made out of a basket. "Matt make that?"

"Yeah, sweet, right?" Casey knelt down and rested Charlotte on the towels. She kept her eyes closed and continued sucking rhythmically on her pacifier. "I was gonna put her back in the sink." Maggie chuckled, and Casey didn't have the energy to tell her it hadn't been a joke.

"Get some sleep," Maggie told her. "You did a good thing today. Rest."

Casey gave her a meek smile and nodded. "Thanks, Maggie May."

Maggie's face grew stern. "Don't you start that."

Casey smirked at her as she stalked out of the room. She liked Maggie, she wasn't anything but Maggie. No more, no less. What you saw was what you go; no tricks. Casey liked people like that, uncomplicated.

Charlotte made a little whine and opened her eyes. "Oh, no, don't cry," Casey begged. "Please, sleep. Sleep is good. Here look," Casey took the alien toy from her pocket and waved it in front of Charlotte's face. "I stole this for you. Maybe it's weird that it's an alien... next time I see one I'll get a puppy or something. But look," Casey clipped the toy through one of the holes in the washing basket so it hung just by Charlotte's head. "You won't lose it."

The office door creaked open and Matt walked in. "You're back!" He grinned.

"Ssh!" Casey hissed, gesturing at the baby.

"She started crying while you were away," Matt said in a quiet voice. "I got Lourdes to help. Sorry I couldn't take care of her the right way."

"You did just what I would have done," Casey shrugged. "Don't be sorry." She noticed the notebook under Matt's arm. "What's that?"

"My journal," Matt whispered and sat beside Casey. "My dad told me to write everything that happens." He flipped open the journal to the most recent entry. "Can you tell me if I spelled your name right?"

Casey leant over Matt's shoulder and read the first sentence on the page. _Hal went with KC to get food for Etta._ Casey smiled, she didn't have the heart to tell him he had her name wrong. Instead, she focused on the third name he'd written. "Etta?"

Matt shrugged. "I wasn't sure how to spell Charlotte. I thought Etta was a good nickname."

"Etta," Casey looked down at the sleeping baby in the washing basket. "I like it."

Matt smiled. "Me too."

Casey leant over the basket and tucked the blanket around the baby's feet so they wouldn't get cold. "Goodnight, Etta."

**xxx**


	5. Lost & Insecure

_A/N: This chapter contains Grace Mason, an original character created by the lovely Jemmz, whom you can find here on . Her OC, Grace, is Tom's oldest daughter. Jem is working on the fic surrounding her that will hopefully be up soon :)_

**Chapter 5: Lost & Insecure**

Casey fell asleep in a ball right next to Etta's basket, but she was woken up way too soon by Matt shaking her. Casey peeked at him through one eye, he was crouched at her side hovering over her. "What is it?" Casey's voice was hoarse and agitated from too little sleep. As she leant up on one arm, a blanket slid off of her shoulders and she realized Matt must have put it over her. She felt guilty for growling at him, but Matt was so animated he didn't seem to notice.

"Grace is back!" Matt was saying. "She came back!"

Casey shook her head a little to wake herself up, sure she had heard the wrong name. Grace? No one had seen the oldest and only Mason daughter since the Mechs and skitters flooded the 2nd Mass in Fitchburg. "What?" Casey sat up and rubbed her eyes until they opened fully.

"She's still with Anne," Matt looked worried. "What if she's hurt really bad? Anne wouldn't let me see her."

"Okay, don't freak out," Casey yawned, reached out and mussed up his hair. "Let's go see what's going on."

Etta was still sleeping, so Casey left her in the office while she followed after Matt towards the infirmary where Grace was. The Mason brothers had rarely talked about Grace since she was believed to have been lost, similar to how they never spoke of their father since he boarded the alien ship. As if not mentioning their names, and rejecting offers of condolence, kept them alive.

Never wanting people to bug her about her own family, Casey had kept quiet about questioning the Masons about Grace. Plus, now that Matt was being so helpful she didn't want to say something to him to upset him and then scare off Etta's apparent new best friend.

Hal, Ben and Maggie were waiting outside the infirmary all wearing similar looks of shock and concern when Casey and Matt arrived. "Is Grace okay?" Matt immediately asked his brothers.

"She's alive," Ben knelt down in front of his brother and rested a hand on his shoulder. "And she was talking when I found her."

"Where _did_ you find her?" Casey asked. She had lost sight of Grace before she had run for the cover of the Post Office in Fitchburg.

"A few miles away," Ben said. "She looked like she'd been walking for days."

"Probably had," Maggie said. "Maybe after she got out of Fitchburg she tried to follow our path?"

Hal banged his head back against the gym wall. "I knew she was alive," he scolded himself. "I should have looked for her better. She was out there, all this time."

"She's back now," Maggie told him. "Focus on that."

Anne came out of the infirmary, still just as frazzled and exhausted as when Casey had last seen her. "She's okay," Anne said gently. "She's very dehydrated so I'll have to monitor her carefully for a few days, make sure we get her fluids back up without shocking her system. She has a bad burn on her leg. It looks infected, but I think I got to it in time."

"Do you need anything?" Hal asked. "Meds? Equipment?"

Anne shook her head. "No, the antibiotics you brought back from the pharmacy will keep the infection from spreading, and hopefully if we keep it clean it'll heal on its own. We just have to wait."

"Can we see her?" Matt asked hopefully.

"Sure, but just for a minute." Anne stood aside and ushered the Mason boys inside. "She needs to rest."

Casey hung back with Maggie while the Mason brothers filed into the infirmary and Anne excused herself before heading into the hallway. Through the curtain around her bed, Casey got a quick look at Grace. The teen was quite pale and her normally round face was very drawn. Her chocolate coloured hair was wiry and stringy and her cheeks were smudged. She looked a decade older than her eighteen years. Grace smiled wearily at her brothers, reaching out and for Matt's hand as he came towards her.

"Did you leave the baby alone?" Maggie interrupted Casey's staring.

"She was sleeping," Casey replied, noticing Maggie's slightly surprised expression. "What?"

"You're not supposed to do that," Maggie said kindly.

Casey frowned. "So, I should wake her up and bring her to a room of sick people instead?"

Maggie gave her a considerate smile. "_Touché_."

Sensing she would be intruding if she stuck around and with Maggie's advice repeating in her ear, Casey left Maggie to hover over the Masons. But before she went back to the office, she followed the path Anne had taken out into the hall. Casey found the doctor taking a small break crouched on the floor hugging her knees with her head slumped against her shoulder. Casey's approaching footsteps woke her up. "Everything okay?" Anne asked, forcing her lips into a smile.

"Yeah, fine, keep resting," Casey held out her hands to gesture to Anne that she not get up. Anne needed more than a few minutes alone on a cold floor to recuperate, but Casey knew she would never take a proper break with all the people relying on her.

Anne relaxed back against the wall. "Is Charlotte okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She's sleeping." Casey wasn't sure how to ask what she wanted to ask, so she just bit the bullet and asked it. "I was wondering who you think I should give her to?"

Anne stared at her blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Who should I give Charlotte to?" Casey repeated. "Whose gonna take care of her?"

"Ah," Anne rubbed the back of her neck. "I figured you had volunteered."

Casey's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"You've been doing a good job so far."

"Yeah, I managed a couple of days, but full-time?" Casey couldn't stifle a nervous giggle. "No, no, no, no, no." A panic rose in her throat. "Anne, no! There has to be someone else."

"Well, there's not," Anne said through a yawn.

A swift rush of anxiety swept over Casey like a wave. "I stopped Mech's from killing her and found her food, that doesn't mean I can take care of her. She's a baby, what do I do with a baby?"

"You do what you're doing now," Anne said calmly. "Hold her, feed her, talk to her. She's just a really small person."

"What if I drop her? I left her alone to sleep, apparently that's a bad thing?" Casey knew she sounded stupid, but the words kept tumbling out of her mouth. "What if she gets sick? What if she stops breathing? Oh crap, is that why I shouldn't leave her alone?"

"Casey-"

"Anne, I am _not_ good with babies."

"Well, you're good with Charlotte." Anne had a conclusive tone in her voice. "We all have to adjust, we're all doing things we never expected ourselves to be doing. And if you ask me, the person who saved Charlotte's life, and kept her fed and warm is the person Sarah would be glad was taking care of her daughter."

Casey could tell Anne was trying to assure her, give her confidence, but all Casey could think of was how wrong she was for this job. There were women who radiated a warm, maternal glow, Casey's mother had been like that. But not Casey. "Anne-"

"Anne?" Lourdes came jogging into the hall. "Grace is running a fever, but I'm not sure if it's her infection or the meds."

"I'll be right there," Anne heaved herself to her feet.

Casey forced her rambling mouth shut. Anne had much bigger issues to worry about then who was watching a baby sleep. In fact, everyone did. In the scheme of things, Casey was lucky. She hadn't lost any family in Fitchburg, she wasn't gravely injured, she didn't have patients lives to save, she didn't have a brother who had been harnessed, or a father aboard an alien spaceship. She had a baby.

Maybe when they found a new place to settle down, somewhere they could regroup like they had at the school, maybe then someone else would be able to take over from her. Until then, Casey knew Anne was right. There was no one else.

Back in the office, Etta was awake and squirming in her basket. As Casey sat cross-legged beside her, the baby starting fussing. Casey saw she had lost her pacifier and as soon as she replaced it, Etta calmed down. "I like you when you're quiet," Casey told her. "Promise to stay like this all the time?" Casey reached for her satchel bag that Lourdes had helped her turn into a diaper bag and began fixing up a bottle of formula.

With her broken wrist still giving her grief, Casey had to do everything one-handed including lifting Etta out of her basket. It was less painful to hold Etta with her damaged arm then try and hold the bottle with her mitten-like bandage. "So, here's the deal." Casey said as she traded the pacifier for the bottle. "I know you're not that into me but Anne says we have to suck it up. Apparently, that means we'll be spending a lot of time together." Etta whined. "I know, I'm not thrilled about it either. But it's just for a little while."

* * *

That night, after Casey had changed, fed and burped Etta, she tucked a pillow made from a sweater under her head and laid down next to the basket. The Masons were all spending the night with Grace in the infirmary, so Casey had the office to herself. She curled up, closed her eyes and actually thought she might get a good sleep until a raucous bought of laughter came boomed in through the window vent. And it didn't quiet down. The pop and fizz of beer cans could be heard under the rabble of noise.

Swearing to herself, Casey sprang right to her feet. After Etta's long sleep she had _not_ gone down easily that night. Casey had had to sit with her for two hours in the dark office begging her to just attempt to sleep before she'd finally nodded off. And then just as Casey had settled herself, the laughter had dared to begin.

Casey stormed outside into the cold without grabbing her jacket. But when she saw the reason for the noise, she discovered she didn't need her jacket. Her anger boiling inside her kept her warm.

Pope and the Berserkers were laying around in a group, drinking and laughing, with absolutely no care of who they may be irritating. Casey stalked right over to Pope, who was at the helm of the little gathering, chuckling along with his comrades. "What in the hell do you think you're doing making all that goddamn noise?" Casey barked at him.

"We're celebrating!" Pope tossed a can of beer at her. "Pull up a chair!"

Casey let the can soar right past her head and crack on the ground behind her. "Well, could you shut the hell up? I just got Etta to sleep."

Pope raised an eyebrow at her. "Etta?"

"Yeah," Casey cleared her throat. "Charl-_ette_. Etta. It's what I decided to call her," Casey folded her arms. "Is there a problem?"

A tense silence followed as Pope stared her down. All of the Berserkers quietly sipped their beers, watching, waiting to see what would happen next. It was Tector who eventually stood up. "No, no problem," Tector said with an apologetic grin. "We'll keep it down. Won't we, Boss?"

Pope let out a long, irritated sigh, then got to his feet and made a point of bowing down to Casey as if he was making her a grand gesture. "As you wish."

Casey kept her glare on Pope before turning on her heel and heading back inside. She waited for the laughter to start up again and was already mentally preparing her arguments for when she had to go back out there and yell some more. But she didn't end up having to go back out at all.

Etta was still sleeping when Casey made it back to the office, and though she could hear the clanging of beer cans and the occasional titter from outside, Casey could hear more noise from the inside of the gym than from the Berserkers. She doubted it was out of compassion that they had gave in, and figured that the Berserkers, like herself, decided it would be much easier to stay quiet now than have to deal with a screaming infant tomorrow.


	6. Where We Land

_A/N: This chapter also contains Grace Mason, an original character created by the lovely Jemmz :)  
_

**Chapter 6: Where We Land**

When the 2nd Mass arrived back in Boston, Casey didn't feel as settled as she thought she should since given the fact they were in the state capital. She had expected to feel more confident since they were somewhere "known", but instead she felt nervous. She put her rush of anxiety to lack of sleep. It had rained heavily the whole drive from Fitchburg and Etta did _not_ travel happily.

Not wanting to have the baby too far away from Anne if she suddenly needed medical help, Casey travelled in the repurposed city bus that Jamil had helped convert into a mobile clinic. But since the bus was designed to transport patients, most of whom were suffering from bad burns, Anne asked Jamil to drive much slower than he probably would have liked. So, the bus was among the last of the fleet to arrive in Boston.

Where exactly they were in Boston, Casey wasn't sure. The buildings and homes they passed whilst driving the streets had been bombed flat by beamers or Mechs months before. Casey had no idea where Weaver intended for them to camp in this shell of a city. When they came to a stop under the bridge just by the water, Casey figured it was purely to regroup. But in fact, the bridge was to be their new base camp. Weaver assured the 2nd Mass that with all the trees, the bridge and enough Army camouflage netting, they should be able to keep themselves hidden.

The rain that had travelled with them from Fitchburg had eased off to a monotonous, gentle splattering by the time the 2nd Mass arrived in the very early hours of the morning. To keep Etta from catching a cold, Anne suggested Casey stay put in the medic bus until sunrise. Anne had also tasked Casey with keeping watch over Grace and Matt, as well as Etta, in exchange for being given refuge inside the bus while the bulk of the 2nd Mass slept outside in tents.

Grace was laying before Casey on a gurney that Jamil had managed to chain in place to the floor of the bus. Exhausted from the trip, Matt had fallen asleep on the long seat at the back of the bus, and Etta slept in her basket at Casey's feet. It reminded Casey of how her grandmother used to sit with her dog in a basket at her feet, but they didn't exactly have time to find a car seat, or have any vehicle in which to secure it.

Casey sat on a foldout chair beside Grace's bed, thumbing through the only book she carried with her. Over her time with the 2nd Mass, Casey had somehow wound up with less property than she'd started with. She only had four things of actual sentimental value in the book bag she carried. And technically, it wasn't even her book bag. It was just something she'd found to carry her wallet, phone, photos and yes, even a book. She had no use for her phone, but she didn't want to ditch it. If electricity ever got back to normal, she had photographs and messages from her mother on her cell that she wanted to see again. Her wallet still had money in it, not that it could be used for much, but she liked to have the wallet with her anyway.

The photos were actually ones her mother had been carrying on the day they tried to flee the city, Casey didn't even really look at them that much nowadays. But they were the first thing that her mother had grabbed, so Casey kept them safe. The book was a copy of Anne Frank's diary Casey had swiped from JFK High School the year before. The book had always meant a lot to Casey, so much so that since the invasion, she felt obligated to carry a copy with her.

It was whilst Casey was skimming a June entry of Anne's diary that Grace woke up with a start. It was as though a loud noise had woken her, but the morning was peacefully quiet. Casey slipped the book into the back of Etta's basket being careful not to wake the infant. "You okay?" Casey handed Grace bottle of water and unscrewed the cap. "Here."

Grace took the bottle, swallowed half the contents, gasped and rested back on her gurney before she attempted to speak. "I am chained to a bed," Grace grumbled. "I should be out there with the other scouts."

"Technically, your bed is chained, not you." Casey said. "And it's been raining out there, you don't wanna be out there."

Grace rolled over on her side so she was facing Casey, grimacing as she shifted her aching body, and noticed Casey's bandaged wrist. "What happened?"

So, Casey told her. She told her about Fitchburg as she remembered it. The post office, the Mech that killed Sarah, escaping through the sewers and finding the gym. Grace was proud to hear how helpful Matt had been with Etta, and became yet another person who assured Casey she would "do fine" with a baby.

"What about you?" Casey switched focus to Grace. "Tell me about Grace's Excellent Adventure. We thought we'd lost you in Fitchburg. How'd you get out?"

"I walked," Grace said with a tired smile. "Well, first I tried to run. Well, no, first I was knocked out. Mech blast exploded a car right next to me. When I woke up, it was morning and I was under a bunch of rubble. There was no one around. Well, no one alive. I saw bike tracks on the road, so I followed them and then I just walked the way I would have gone if I was Weaver. I knew my leg was burned but I didn't want to look at it, I just knew I couldn't run on it. So, I just walked until I couldn't walk anymore."

"Where did Ben find you?"

"I found a river, there was a car stuck in the mud, so I was resting in the backseat. Ben found me there." Grace's eyes drifted off and she stared at nothing. "I thought I was dreaming. Didn't realize how tired I was until I tried to get out of that car. Felt like my body was full of cement. Don't think Ben's ever carried me before in his life, but he brought me back without breaking a sweat. Those spikes are good for something."

The extra energy, perfect health and swift movements that came with being a de-harnessed survivor were oddly perfect for the world they lived in now. But Casey didn't share her opinion with Grace. The girl was exhausted and didn't need people thinking her brother as a freak was a useful tool for the camp. "Well, I'm glad you're back." Casey told her instead.

The bus door squeaked opened and Lourdes came aboard. She looked mildly well-rested and smiled when she saw Grace was awake. "Good, you're up. I was coming to wake you so you could eat something." In her hands she held a plastic bowl. "Soup." She announced.

Casey raised her eyebrows, and her stomach growled to life. "There's soup?"

Lourdes nodded. "Yeah, people were up all night getting the food tent together. I can watch the baby if you want to get something."

Casey didn't wait to be told twice, she was starving. It didn't matter that soup was on the menu for breakfast; the 2nd Mass had long since done away with typical eating rules. Food was food, and Casey wanted it.

Outside, the sky was a miserable shade of grey but at least it wasn't raining. Casey followed the smell of spice to the food tent and joined the short line of people queuing up. As she took a bowl from the small stack of plastic ware, she noticed that on the edge of the foldout table was a little container of breath mints that someone must have left behind. Casey picked it up and shook it, it rattled. There were at least half a dozen mints left. Score.

"If I save a baby, can I get some perks, too?"

Casey turned to see Crazy Lee, the only female Berserker, step into line right behind her. "You think mints are a perk?" Casey inquired. "Or are you saying something about my breath?"

Lee shrugged. Her curls, held back with her trademark bandana, bounced from the shake of her head. "Just what happens when you're part of the Mason crowd, right? The extra swag just falls into your lap."

"Here, take 'em," Casey tossed Lee the mints which she caught one-handed. "You just had to ask."

Casey figured that would be the end of their interaction, and took her bowl of soup from the woman behind the table. But when she turned around, Lee was still behind her. "Playing nursemaid doesn't give you access to better food, then, huh?" Lee asked.

"What do you think, the Masons have a stash of high quality stuff that they're keeping from everyone else?" Casey asked.

Lee shrugged, keeping in step with Casey as they walked off. "I figured someone would be paying you off now that you're on full-time diaper duty."

Casey snorted. "Are you kidding? Diapers are the easy part. It's only a mess. I clean it up and she's fine. What's worse is feeding her. Anne told me to feed her every two hours, but it takes me an hour to feed her so do I feed her every two hours from when I start, or every two hours from when I finish? I feel like I'm feeding her all the time, and then she overeats and spits up all over me. And do I wake her up to feed her? Anne said never wake her if she's sleeping, so how the hell am I supposed to feed her every two hours?"

Lee gave her an unamused look. "In Fitchburg, I was cornered by three skitters and only had two bullets left in my gun." She said coolly. "Finished off two by headshots, the third one by tackling it and smashing its brains with a brick."

"Right, so you know how it is." Casey joked, thankful that Lee caught the lightness of her tone and playfully rolled her eyes in reply.

Casey hadn't really been paying attention to where they were headed, and found herself walking with Lee right up to Pope, Boon, Lyle and Tector. The Berserkers had claimed themselves a square of space by a pillar of the bridge. Their bikes fenced in the little area, and they had dragged in a few chairs. Tector was sitting up in a chair with his eyes closed, apparently sleeping, Pope and Boon were drinking coffee and playing cards, and Lyle was eating his breakfast soup while watching the card game.

"Dammit!" Boon growled at himself and tossed away his cards. "You gotta be cheatin', Pope. No way someone can lose as many times as I have."

Pope chuckled to himself, and then noticed Casey and Lee. "Found yourself a girlfriend, Craze?" Pope greeted Lee. "Maybe she can braid that rats nest you call hair."

"You're one to talk," Lee replied with a grin and took a seat by Lyle.

Casey eyed the card game. "What are you playing?"

"Texas Hold 'Em, wanna play?" Pope asked as Boon got to his feet in a huff.

"Oh, no, I don't really play cards," Casey sipped her soup out of the bowl.

"So? I could use the practice," Pope gestured to Boon's vacated seat. "Not like any of my gang are worth playing anyway."

"He's talking about you, Boon," Lyle said.

"You can all suck it," Boon pouted and wandered off towards the food tent.

Casey noticed the small pile of items on the turned over oil drum that they were using as a card table. "I don't have anything to bet with."

"Here," Lee tossed Casey back the container of mints. "All you had to do was ask." She added with a smirk.

With a disinterested shrug, Casey accepted. She took Boon's seat in front of Pope and added her little tin of mints to the pot, which so far consisted of a couple of sugar packets, gum, and a wristwatch. "Okay," she slurped the last of her soup and sat her bowl at her feet. "Deal."

"That's cute," Pope said as he shuffled the cards. "You know the words."

Casey gave him a tight-lipped smile, not wanting to derail his over-confidence. It was necessary for her to win. And win she did, in all of ten minutes. It was at about the nine minute mark that Pope caught on that Casey knew what she was doing, and his arrogant, snarky comments evaporated. Tector awoke from his nap to witness the game with Lee and Lyle. And when Boon came back with his soup, he stood right behind Lee and watched the whole thing.

"You said you couldn't play," Pope complained as he showed his final hand, a flush of hearts.

"No, I said I _don't_ play." Casey corrected him. "And the reason I don't play," She grandly laid down her four aces on top of the oil drum. "Is because I always win. And no one likes show-off."

"Oh, snap, Boss!" Tector let out a whistle and applauded along with Boon and Lee.

Lyle roared a deep, belly laugh. "Ha, she played you, Pope!"

Casey knew her smile was smug and she didn't care. Her one talent was that she almost always won at poker. In fact, the only times she lost were against the person who taught her to play - her mother. Though she had a feeling when she used to play her Dad, he would let her win.

"Rematch." Pope demanded.

"Maybe later," Casey got to her feet. She had to relieve Lourdes of her Etta-watching duty. "But you go ahead and keep the pot," She told Pope, nodding at the collection of sugar and mints. "I did sort of trick you into an epic loss." Casey offered her seat back to Boon and headed towards the medic bus. Even when she was back inside with Etta, Casey could still hear Lee taunting Pope over his defeat.

**xxx**


	7. In The Woods

**Chapter 7: In The Woods**

The next three days were spent setting up the Boston camp. A successful scouting trip had uncovered a nearby army base that the 2nd Mass had quickly cleaned out for supplies. While all of the weapons and most of the vehicles were gone from the base, plenty of beds, blankets and camouflage netting remained. There was also a large selection of canned food and bags of rice and pasta. Enough to last the 2nd Mass for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, before they needed to go searching again. The scouts had packed up three old army vans with the supplies and driven them all back to the new campsite.

That morning, while a group of the 2nd Mass organized the food and began setting up beds, Casey spent her time looking for a place to call her own. She had been ousted from the medic bus when three soldiers came in wounded after their van blew a tyre and smashed into a ditch. Anne said their injuries weren't life threatening, but all extra space in the bus had been crammed with some more gurneys for the new patients. Even Grace had finally been able to leave and now shared a tent with all three of her brothers. So, Casey and Etta needed a new place to stay. And Casey didn't fancy adding a newborn to the Mason group, so she didn't ask to join them. Besides, she preferred having her own space.

As she wandered with Etta, Casey was mulling over where she should relocate herself. Keep to the outskirts of the camp so Etta's cries didn't bother anyone? Or keep closer inside near Anne in case Etta got sick? Still considering her options, Casey headed past the sentry tower towards the path through the woods. The path was getting more defined every day as more boots and wheels trudged through. It was the direction the 2nd Mass had driven through the day they found this place, and now the scouts and fighters used it as a thoroughfare.

The woods themselves were dense like a children's fairytale. Trees with thick trunks and dark green leaves seemed to be crammed together way too tight. Good camouflaging for the camp, but even looking at it Casey felt lost. Instead, she just drifted along the manmade path simply enjoying the vast array of space before her. It was nice not to see a huge group of people milling around, talking, laughing, and shouting at each other. It was relaxing to just to walk with no one around to bump into.

Casey had always been independent. Only child to Thea and Mike Taylor, Casey had lived alone since she moved out of home at twenty-two. She just felt content by herself, a trait all three Taylors shared. Weekends were often spent in three corners of the home. Thea painting her watercolours out on the front deck, Mike watching old football games getting tips for his college team, and Casey reading in her room. The Three Taylors liked their silence.

Of course, now Casey also had Etta to contend with. But Etta seemed to enjoy the solitude as well. At least, she was enjoying the walk along the path by the 2nd Mass campsite. Casey was sure the baby would voice her dissatisfaction if she felt otherwise.

Casey was so caught up in her happiness at being alone that it took her a second to identify the little huddles of fur she spotted on the ground just off to her right. Three rabbits clumped together chewing grass. They seemed so out of place that Casey almost laughed. The 2nd Mass generally scared off wildlife when they blazed into a town. Squatting down to her haunches to get a better look at the animals, Casey noted two were brown and one was black but they were all very chubby. If they noticed they were being watched, they weren't bothered. Eyes hovering over their rotund bellies, Casey couldn't help but think they would make for a good meal, and wondered if she could sneak away to alert someone of the nearby food without scaring the rabbits off.

"Etta, check it out. Rabbits." Casey whispered and tried to manoeuvre the baby so she could see the rabbits, but Etta didn't seem too keen on focusing on anything but her pacifier. "Y'know, last time I saw one of these I hit it with my car. Not intentionally. It just ran out on the road in front of me. Surely that's gotta be some sort of shock-induced stupidity that makes it run _towards_ the loud, roaring, metal thing on wheels. Man, I was so freaked out that I'd see it all smushed under my wheel, so I drove straight to my mother's house and had her deal with it."

Then, just like a silent alarm had gone off, the rabbits abruptly scattered into the shrubs. Casey hadn't heard anything, but the way the animals dashed off made her nervous. Like they had sensed something that she couldn't. Slowly, Casey got to her feet and started backing away. Even though she could still hear the hum of voices from the camp, she suddenly felt like she was miles away from anyone.

To her left, Casey heard twigs cracked under the weight of footsteps. Etta made a whiny noise. Casey folded her blanket in around her tighter to try and muffle the noise. No sound of skitter grunts or thudding Mech footsteps; but there was _something_ there. Casey stood frozen, staring at where she had heard the twig crack, and watched as a pale face with stunning green eyes peered around a tree trunk.

The girl was a redhead, about Ben's age, very thin, and her milk-white face was decorated with green and yellow scales. Skitter skin. Her harness was visible just underneath her loosened braid. She wore muddied jeans and a purple winter coat that seemed a size or two too small.

"Stop, don't come any closer." Casey told her, though she had no idea how she was going to pose any sort of a threat if the skitter girl ran at her.

But she didn't run at her. She just stood behind that tree looking lost. "Is that your baby?" She asked Casey softly. Her voice sounded scratchy, like she had a cold. "She's so small."

"Step back, kid," Crazy Lee strode in from behind Casey with her shotgun poised to fire at the girl. "Been waiting for a chance to test this gun."

"Jesus!" Casey jumped. She hadn't even heard Lee approach. "Did you follow me?"

"Sentry saw you leave," Lee shrugged. "Thought you might be going to ditch the baby."

"How nice." Casey deadpanned.

"Please don't shoot me," The girl pleaded with Lee. "I'm just hungry."

"Bull, you're harnessed," Lee said keeping her gun aimed. "You a spy? Telling your bug bosses where we are?"

"No, neither." The girl said. "My name's Abigail. Something happened to my harness. I can't hear them anymore. They ignore me." Abigail turned and lifted up her braid to show off her harness.

Casey had seen way too many harnessed children in her time, but she had never seen a harness like the one attached to the back of Abigail's neck. It was grey. There was no light pulsing through it. It looked as frail as ash, like simply touching it would cause it to disintegrate.

Casey shared a look with Lee, who began lowering her gun. "We've got to take her back," Lee said to Casey. "She could be lying. Can't let her run off now that she knows where we are."

Clearly Abigail wasn't like the other harnessed children, but that didn't mean she was trustworthy. Ben might be able to help, he could hear the skitters, maybe he could tell if she was lying. Then if she was, Weaver could deal with it. Casey's mother wasn't around to help her out if Abigail ran under the wheel of the car.

"Please don't kill me." Abigail begged.

"We won't," Casey said. "But we can't let you go," She thought a moment, and figured enticing the girl would be the safest option. "We have food. And a doctor who can check out your harness. Maybe get it off you." Casey didn't have a clue if Anne would have any luck detaching the harness in its strange state, but the easier they got Abigail to come with them the better.

Lee gestured with her gun for Abigail to walk forwards. "Let's go, then."

Etta stirred on the walk back, and was righteously screeching by the time they arrived in the centre of the 2nd Mass. "Captain Weaver!" Casey called out as soon as she saw their leader. Jostling Etta in her arms didn't seem to slay her screams.

Weaver turned, took one look at Abigail, and ordered his troops to surround her. "Casey, what the hell is this?" Weaver asked as Hal, Maggie, Dai and Anthony circled around Abigail. The girl was looking fearfully between all of them, not sure who, if anyone, she could trust.

"I found her," Casey proceeded to tell Weaver, over Etta's cries, how she'd stumbled upon the girl. "Something's up with her harness."

"She sure doesn't act like a harnessed kid." Lee added as the rest of the Berserkers came in to watch the events unfold.

Ben arrived beside his older brother, eyes narrowing on Abigail. His young face was a mix of surprise and confusion. "I can't hear her," Ben frowned. "She's not connected to them."

Abigail stared at Ben and pointed out his spikes. "You were harnessed, too? How did you get it off? Everyone I know died trying to remove it."

"Take her to Anne," Weaver ordered. "I want eyes on her at all times."

"You collecting kids, now?" Pope asked as he watched the huddle of fighters follow Abigail towards the medic bus.

Casey shrugged. Etta was still crying. "I'm delightful."

* * *

Night fell, rabbit stew was on the menu, and Casey still didn't have a tent to sleep in. Etta seemed perfectly content sleeping in her carrier around Casey's neck so Casey didn't dare take it off. Instead she went to the medic bus to see if Anne would give her an extra night's refuge.

Two of the soldiers who had been injured in their car accident had been discharged from Anne's care, so she agreed to give Casey the back seat of the bus for the night. Anne set Etta's basket on the floor by the backseat and helped Casey lower the carrier into it with Etta still sleeping within.

Abigail was sleeping, too. She now occupied Grace's former gurney. After three bowls of rabbit stew and two full water bottles, she had fallen right to sleep on her stomach while Anne was inspecting her harness. She'd been asleep for four solid hours.

"Verdict?" Casey whispered, nodding at Abigail as Anne rearranged a blanket over the girls bony shoulders.

Anne shook her head, unsure. "Ben sat with her for two hours, said he didn't even get a flicker of a connection. And her harness is unlike any one I've ever seen before," Anne tossed Casey's a latex glove. "Touch it."

Though the harness looked delicate as tissue, it was hard as rock under Casey's gloved fingertips. "Can you remove it?"

Anne shook her head, no. "The harness attaches along the spine, and since hers is calcified, I suspect that it will have hardened right to the bone. So to remove it, I would have to chip it off her spine. And the chances of doing that without killing her, let alone paralysing her, without the right tools, medications and doctors, are less than zero."

"How do you think she got this way?"

"Well," Anne looked thoughtful. "I think that she's an genetic error. Something went wrong in her harnessing process and so the transformation didn't complete. She's an anomaly, sitting between being harnessed and being human. The aliens have no use for her, and she has no one to go back to. She's in limbo."

Casey tossed her used latex glove into a bucket at Anne's feet. "So, what do we do now?"

Anne gave her a wistful smile. "I have no idea."

"Anne, we can't keep her here but we can't let her go, either. Ben talked about the bond he had with the skitters when he was still harnessed," Casey reminded Anne. "What if Abigail still feels that, despite not being telepathically connected to them? What if she runs back to the skitters and tells them where we are so they accept her again?"

"I don't know," Anne sighed and leant back against the side of the bus. "I don't know what we do with her. Tom would know." She chewed her lower lip for a couple of moments. "Tom would tell us that Ben was harnessed, and now he's okay. That this girl hasn't threatened us, so we shouldn't attack her just because she was unfortunate enough to have been harnessed."

Though it did sound like something Tom Mason would say, Casey didn't want to be the one to relay that to Weaver. Not that Casey thought the Captain would order her to be executed or something, but it was unlikely Weaver would be as rational as Anne. Casey told the doctor as much.

"I'll talk to him," Anne said. "He'll at least agree we can't put her back out there now that she knows where we are. And I guess that's a start."

Lourdes boarded the medic bus to help Anne with the patients, so Casey headed to the backseat and curled up next to Etta's basket. Despite the bustling footsteps and groans of patients, Casey managed to fall asleep.

* * *

By midday the following day, Casey finally had her tent. Maggie helped her put it together while Matt watched over Etta in the medic bus. Casey was determined to get her build her tent with as little help as possible, but her wrist was being particularly sensitive that morning which made almost every movement send daggers of pain through her arm. Unsurprisingly, Maggie was quick to takeover.

"Thanks," Casey said to Maggie as she took the hammer from her broken hand and drove the tent peg deep into the ground with two solid thwacks. "I always hated camping."

"It's fun without tents," Maggie said as she hammered the final peg in place. "Sleeping out under the stars is pretty damn great. Course, it was a lot more fun before Beamers started flying through the sky and giant alien landmarks popped up over the city."

"You into camping?"

"Kind of," Maggie said. "When I was younger, I sorta went here, there and everywhere for awhile. Had no money, so I slept wherever I could. I've also slept in a tree. That was actually better than the ground. You just gotta find the right tree or," She slapped her hands together in a sharp clap. "Broken bones," She grinned and nodded at Casey's wrist. "But you already have that covered."

"True," Casey gave her an unimpressed look and tossed a blanket onto her camping bed. "And at least I don't have to sleep on the ground,"

"Hey, nice digs!" Lee shouted as she passed by the tent with Boon at her side.

Casey gave her canvas home a once over glance. "Yeah, gimme a day to get settled and I'll have you over for dinner."

"Pope's still bitching about a rematch," Boon added, stopping to light up a cigarette. "Yeah, you gotta teach me your tricks, lady," A puff of smoke curled out of Boon's mouth as he spoke. "Or just gimme a front row seat next time you kick his ass."

Casey waved them away and knelt down to sweep some pebbles out of her tent.

"What's that about?" Maggie asked, nodding after Boon and Lee.

"I smoked Pope at poker," Casey grinned, remembering how shocked Pope had looked when she'd laid down her cards. "Now he's PMS-ing and wants a rematch."

"You hanging with the Berserkers?" Maggie asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I hang with everyone." Casey pointed out. "Berserkers, doctors, Masons, you. I did it when I was a kid, too. My father used to tell me I would be a great outside linebacker."

Maggie's brow furrowed. "That's defence in football, right?"

Casey nodded. "An outside linebacker covers short passes and rushes in from the sides," she said. "My Dad said that's what I would "short pass" people. Not really sure what that means, just that my mother didn't like him saying it."

"So, you're into football?"

Casey shook her head. "Not even a little. My dad was a coach of a college team. Thirty-five years."

"Did he see the invasion?"

"Nope, died ten years ago. Massive heart attack. Just keeled over at the table one morning." Casey didn't mind talking about her father's death. She missed the hell out of that grumpy old man, but she was able to remember him fondly without bursting into tears. "We sort of expected it. He smoked two packs a day, ate like crap and rarely slept more than four hours."

"He sounds awesome," Maggie said with a grin.

For a few moments, the pair silently finished clearing rocks out of the tent and making sure everything was secure. Casey was going to ask Maggie if she wanted to be her roommate, but Maggie had something of her own she wanted to share. "Don't get too close to those guys." Maggie said so quietly that only Casey could hear her.

"Why?" Casey knew Maggie had been with Pope's gang before they had found the 2nd Mass, but she also knew that Tector, Lyle, Lee and Boon had become Berserkers _after_ Pope's arrival. They weren't part of his original gang. "You think they're gonna kill me or something?"

"Just..." Maggie didn't seem to know what else to say. "Just be careful around them. Especially with that baby." She gave Casey a smile, bumped a fist against her shoulder and then headed off.

Casey heaved a huge breath and looked inside her tent. Berserkers, Masons, Maggie, Weaver, it seemed like whoever she was chatting with seemed to have one issue or another with everyone else. But she didn't really care about what that issue was. They were all 2nd Mass. Hell, they were all regular people. And a group of regular people would always have issues with each other. What Casey hoped to gain by having her voice all over the place, with Grace, Maggie, Lee, Anne, was some form of peaceful everyday existence at the camp for herself.

Well, and now for Etta, too.


	8. When The Rain Falls Down

**Chapter 8: When The Rain Falls Down**

Casey's first night in her tent with Etta wasn't without issues, all of which were compounded by the fact it had started raining at about midnight and was still raining late into the next morning. Though Casey wasn't at all an expert when it came to baby knowledge, she was very aware that sleepless nights were more than common. And that night Casey had her first.

Up until then, Etta had been a good sleeper. Even when she had woken up screaming in the past, Casey was generally already awake. But for whatever reason, whether it was the rain or just general misery, Etta decided that night that she was going to cry, cry and then cry some more.

When Casey finally gave in and got out of bed to tend to Etta's demands, the morning sky was grey and greenish clouds were huddling together promising quite a nasty storm to come. After feeding Etta and grabbing some leftover rabbit stew for her own breakfast, Casey settled just outside her tent under the tarpaulin shade roof.

In a brief break of the rain after breakfast, Casey had borrowed three crates from a neighbour and set herself up outside her tent. Etta was beside her in her basket sitting underneath an umbrella with red hearts all over it, just in case the tarp roof succumbed to all the rain.

Though Etta seemed happier exploring her mouth with her fingers, Casey still attempted to teach her Blackjack. And an hour later, despite never actually picking up a card or being aware of what was happening, Etta was winning. Casey was complaining about her run of bad cards to the baby when Pope arrived.

"What are you two talking about?" He was looking at her like he had just caught her talking to herself.

"Blackjack," Casey she shuffled her cards. No tricks, just generic shuffling. She'd never mastered the card shuffling flair that her mother had. "Etta wins about half the time. I ask her Hit or Stay, if she makes a noise I take it as her calling a Hit. She stays quiet, it means Stay. Mostly I go Bust, but it's still a win for her. I should be keeping tally. She's beaten me at cards more than you"

Pope glared at her and then sat down on the crate opposite her. "Rematch. _No Texas Hold 'Em. Five Card Draw_, and I'm dealing."

Due to the relentless rain, Casey had planned to spend the day playing cards and maybe, if she could entice someone to watch Etta, finding time to nap. "As you wish." She handed him the deck. "What are we playing for?"

"Bragging rights."

"I don't brag," Casey said politely. "It's not classy."

Pope didn't look amused. "That supposed to be funny?"

Casey tried to glare but she made herself laugh. "Just deal." Etta began to whinge, so Casey retrieved her pacifier from her pocket and stuck it in her mouth. She quieted almost immediately. Casey made a mental note to be on the lookout for more of those things, she was certain to lose this one and it worked wonders.

After a few minutes of boastful talk about their respectful "perfect" hands, Pope laid down his cards with a slightly less enthusiastic flick of his wrist than the one from their first game. Casey spied his Jack high straight and bit her lip. "Damn," She frowned and set her cards facedown. "You win."

For a very brief millisecond, Pope looked like he might whoop out loud. But instead his eyes narrowed. He reached across the crate table and flipped over Casey's cards. Four twos stared right back up at him. "Oh, come on!"

"Even when I lose, I win." Casey laughed. That was a thing her mother did to her father, pretend to have a bad hand when in fact it was a winner. Her Dad had appreciated it about as much as Pope. "Wanna play _Go Fish_?"

"You're funny," He shuffled the cards with tense hands. "Y'know, if this was darts, I'd be owning you right now."

"But it's not. And you aren't." Casey reached over to Etta and stuck her pacifier back in her mouth before the baby started to whinge. "I thought you'd be good at cards," Casey teased Pope. "It would go with your whole vibe."

"My "vibe"?"

"The prison ink, the bikes, the leather, the epic facial hair?" Casey listed. "Cards kind of go with the package."

Pope smiled, but he didn't look at all happy. "Well, since you know so much about me, let's talk about you," He started dealing again. "What did you do before this lovely apocalypse?"

"I was a copy editor for an antique magazine," Casey said. "_DéjàNew_."

Pope raised an eyebrow at her. "Bluffing?"

"Sadly, no," Casey admitted, briefly checking the cards she had been dealt. Pair of Jacks. "And if you think that sucks, we had a monthly reader write-in column called _Mantiques_. Which was generally just guys bragging about sport or music memorabilia they thought was worth a fortune."

Pope scoffed, but actually did seem slightly amused. Casey was used to it, her friends never let up about the lame puns that seemed to accompany the particular magazine she worked for. As Casey was debating whether or not to fold just to mess with Pope again, Etta made a very loud squeal. So loud it made both Pope and Casey squint back a little.

"What's her problem?" Pope asked.

"She's bored," Casey said as she once again replaced Etta's pacifier. "Deal her in."

* * *

Casey woke up with a violent headache and the feeling like she had spent the night downing can after can of cheap beer. Her whole body was lethargic and slow to react. Her blurred vision focused on a dizzying mess of colours above her which, when cleared, revealed an advertisement for some type of fluoro coloured candy. It was an ad that Casey knew was on the inside roof of the medic bus. Why was she in the medic bus?

The light above her was way too bright and seemed to pierce through Casey's eyelids, so she covered her face with her hands and that was when she heard Anne's faraway voice. "Casey? Can you hear me?"

Casey took her hands from her eyes and saw Anne's serene face above her. The light behind her gave her a soft, angelic glow. "Anne?"

"Do you know where you are?" Anne still sounded like she was two rooms away.

"Yeah, Anne, I'm in the damn bus," Casey replied, though her voice sounded a lot slower than she anticipated, and had none of the snark she expected to hear. "The hell is going on?"

"Follow my finger," Anne slowly waved her forefinger from side to side in front of Casey's eyes. "You got hit in the head."

After a few seconds Casey squinted her eyes shut; following Anne's finger made her temples throb. The last thing she remembered was going to bed after a rainy day of repeatedly slamming Pope in cards. "By who?" She briefly wondered if Pope had been so furious at his epic losses that he clocked her in her sleep.

"We think it was Abigail." Anne said, her voice finally sounding normal again.

It took Casey a second to even remember the redheaded skitter girl. But it all came back in a rush. The woods, Abigail's busted harness, Lee with that shotgun, Ben not able to heard her. But after finding depositing her with Anne, Casey hadn't spoken to the girl again. "Why would she hit me?"

"We're not sure," Anne admitted. "She's missing."

Casey coughed. Her throat was dry and scratchy as sandpaper. Anne gave her a water bottle and helped her take a drink. "Is Etta okay?" Casey coughed again. When Anne didn't respond, Casey felt a strange squeezing in the pit of her chest. "Anne?"

Anne looked grave. "Etta's missing, too."

**xxx**


	9. Close Watch

_AN - This one was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it got way too long so I cut it up :) Hope you like :)  
And hello/thank you to new readers/subs!_

**Chapter 9: Close Watch**

Casey was up off the gurney in a flash, but she slumped back down almost immediately. Her head spun and a hammer banged between her temples. Cursing, she reluctantly did as Anne was instructing and stayed seated even though her instinct was to get moving.

"Weaver's already out looking for Etta," Anne attempted to soothe Casey. "Along with all the scouts, including Maggie, Hal, Grace and Ben. They left about two hours ago and followed Abigail's trail through the woods."

"Why?" Casey asked, fidgeting. Anne relented slightly and allowed Casey to sit up. "Why the hell would she take Etta? To give her to the skitters? Some sort of trade so they'll take her back even though her harness is messed up?"

"I don't know," Anne said honestly. "But it doesn't matter because they're going to find her. Now sit still, I have to fix your bandage"

Casey winced as Anne adjusted the bandage on Casey's broken wrist. Casey didn't know what to think. Her head was still a foggy mass of nothing. Etta was gone. Gone? Taken by some deranged skitter girl? That was just not possible. That meant Abigail had just wandered into Casey's tent, whacked Casey over the head, picked up the baby, and evaporated into the forest. And all the while, Casey just slept; oblivious to everything.

Oblivious no more, Casey was already plotting what she had to do. "You said the scouts left two hours ago?" Casey asked Anne, who nodded in reply. "That means Etta's already missed one feeding." Ignoring Anne one final time, Casey got to her feet. "I'm not going to lie around here while she misses another."

With that, Casey headed out of the medic bus but in her haste at shoving aside the door, she almost knocked over Matt Mason who was waiting outside. "Jesus!" Casey hissed as the closing door nearly clipped his finger. "Keep clear of the door, Matt."

"Is your head okay?" Matt asked Casey, jogging to keep in step with her.

"It's fine." Casey ignored the sharp pulsing in her head and made a beeline for her tent. Matt followed her the whole way.

"I wanted to go to look for Etta," Matt said breathlessly as he ran to keep up. "They wouldn't take me with them."

They arrived at Casey's tent where the crates Casey and Pope had played cards on the day before were still out front, and even the umbrella covered in red hearts was still sitting where Casey had left it. But inside, everything felt strange and out of place. For starters, Casey's pillow had a big splotch of blood stained on it and a rifle laid on the tent floor. Casey didn't carry a weapon; so she figured that's what Abigail had hit her with. But if the skitter girl had been holding a gun, why not shoot Casey?

To the right of the camp bed was Etta's empty basket with her purple alien toy still clipped to the side. With a slight pang of relief, Casey noticed her satchel bag of baby formula and bottles was missing, too. Abigail was smart enough to know she would have to feed the baby. Casey hoped that meant something.

"I came to get you for breakfast and you were hurt," Matt spoke up quietly from behind Casey. "We made oatmeal, I wanted to make sure you got some."

Casey was only half listening to him, her focus was on something at her feet. Kneeling down, she picked up Etta's discarded pacifier. The baby had been sucking on it when Casey had put her to sleep last night, it must have fallen out when Abigail snatched her out of the tent. Without it, Etta would scream bloody murder. At least that would make her easy to find.

But what if Abigail got frustrated with Etta's crying?

"I'm sorry," Matt said.

Casey spun around on her knees so she was at eye level with Matt. She could see the guilt all over his sweet face, guilt as if he had just been silently standing there watching Abigail take Etta. "Don't be sorry, it's not your fault," Casey assured him. "She waited until I was asleep to take Etta, she made sure she wasn't seen."

"I still feel bad."

Casey knocked his shoulder with her fist and tried to smile. "So do I."

* * *

No matter what Anne strongly advised, Casey knew she was always going to go looking for the baby. It was the same feeling she'd had when she knew she had to find Etta some food. It was her responsibility. If she was charged with taking care of Charlotte, despite her known reservations, then she couldn't let other people do all the work when something went wrong. So bump on the head or not, she was going out there.

But she also knew she couldn't do it alone. Casey had no vehicle, no gun and no idea how to track someone's path. All the scouts and fighters were already out searching, along with their cars and weapons. So, as a light rain began to fall, Casey approached the only people she figured could help her.

The Berserkers were huddled together by the river skipping stones across the water, eating oatmeal and cleaning their guns. Boon was trying to teach himself to skip stones, but he was no good at it. All his stones immediately hit the water with a _bloop_ and sank right to the bottom. However, his efforts did seem to be entertaining his comrades who were animatedly watching him when Casey walked over.

"You gotta fling it," Pope said whilst demonstrating what he meant. "It's in the wrist."

"I _am_ flingin' it," Boon argued as he tossed away another rock.

Crazy Lee was the first to notice Casey arrive. She was chewing a mouthful of oatmeal and greeted Casey her by pointing out her injury. "Nice bump," Lee gestured to Casey's forehead with her spoon.

"Abigail knocked me out." Casey said, trying to move her hair over her face enough to cover the bump.

"The skitter girl?" Tector looked up from the handgun he was reassembling.

Pope raised his eyebrows at her, questioningly. Similar to how he did when she added to the pot in poker. "Why?"

"She-She took Etta," Casey involuntarily stammered. "She took Etta and I have to find her."

"Why would a skitter kid steal a baby?" Pope asked her.

Casey wanted to smack him for his pointless question. "I don't know. And I don't care. But now it's raining, and she's already missed two meals and-" Casey's voice caught in her throat and she was startled with the foreign sensation that she would crack into tears. Clearing her throat, she tried to look stoic and blink the moisture from her eyes. "I am asking for your help." Her voice wavered. "Will you help me?"

* * *

Matt was red with fury when he was told he had to stay behind again. Casey didn't have a problem bringing him along, and Lee was happy to have him ride on her bike with her, but Anne just flat-out refused. With his siblings already out searching, and his father missing, Matt was solely under Anne's protection. The doctor took her role very seriously, to the point where she clung to Matt's hand to make sure he stayed at her side as Casey and the Berserkers headed off.

It had been easier than Casey's anticipated, getting the Berserkers to help her. Whatever camaraderie Casey was developing with Pope during their card games didn't seem to hold up when he was at the helm of his crew, but it wasn't Pope that seemed to make this decision. Lee was up for it, Boon was thrilled to go exploring, and Tector and Lyle wanted to show up Weaver; so Pope kind of just had to go along with what his Berserkers seemed to have already decided.

But even if Pope hadn't been bouncing up and down in excitement to help, he was more than comfortable taking charge of the search process. After Tector located the trail Weaver and the scouts had followed, Pope announced that they would be going in the opposite direction. Pope theorized that skitters were naturally always going to mess with humanity, and any trail left would be a fake. Casey reminded him of Abigail's broken harness, to which he replied: "Once a skitter, always a skitter." And that seemed to be the end of that.

So, Casey and the Berserkers headed into the woods. Overhead the trees were thick and flourishing, they prevented some of the rain from leaking through the leaves, but everything was still damp and slippery. Every few minutes one of the group would stumble, swear, and right themselves again.

There was a road parallel to the path they were taking through the woods, but Casey thought Abigail might hide with Etta up a tree or something. Plus, she didn't want to wander out on an open road and alert Abigail that someone was following her.

That was, of course, if they were heading in the right direction. Tector assured Casey that there was definitely a trail to follow this way. No clue whether or not it was Abigail, but it was a trail.

Two hours later, and nothing. No sign of Abigail, but also no sign of any skitters. The rain kept on through the afternoon and into the evening. The chitchat between the Berserkers quieted as time went on. Everyone was waterlogged and dejected, not keen to waste energy on teasing each other.

Casey was plodding through the thickening mud when she heard Tector whistle, the alert they had all settled on should one of them find something. Casey met up with Lee and the group all converged towards Tector, but Casey could hear what he had found before they arrived. The gentle trickling sound of running water up ahead. A river.

"Break time?" Tector asked Pope as he washed the mud off his hands in the river.

"Sounds good," Pope agreed, leaning his rifle against a tree trunk. "Five minutes."

Casey just wanted to keep going, and said as much to Pope. "It's stupid to stop, what if Abigail walks all night?"

"Five minutes," Pope repeated. "Unless you want us all to die of exhaustion?"

Casey huffed to herself, she was way too jittery to sit still. Instead, she told the Berserkers she was going to follow the river for a few feet to see if it lead to a bigger body of water. It didn't, and Casey knew it wouldn't almost immediately because the water started to thin out the more she walked. But she didn't turn back, not yet. She could still hear the Berserkers chatting, but she felt better standing on her own. Of course, it didn't take long for her to start chastising herself for having to be out here in the first place. And now she'd brought five people along with her. What if they walked straight into a skitter swarm?

The main point that kept swirling through Casey's rattled mind was that this would _not_ have happened if someone else was caring for Etta. Casey liked to be alone, so even with Etta she kept to herself. Someone else would have probably thought Etta should be around the other kids, or keep to the safety of the inside of the camp, or asked a soldier to guard the tent. Something, anything. The more Casey thought about it, the easier she realized it was for Abigail to take Etta. No one had checked on them until Matt came to see her the following morning. Hell, if she'd even just set up her tent near the Berserkers and all their guns, that might have been enough to deter Abigail.

Casey kicked a hunk of dirt into the river, as she thought of Anne. "I told her."

"Told who, what?"

Casey jumped at the sound of Pope's voice, she hadn't heard his footsteps. But the rain was picking up and splattering against the water, so she didn't hear much else anyway. "Anne," Casey said, happy to prove to someone else that this whole baby thing was not her forte. "I told her I couldn't take care of a baby. I knew this would happen."

Pope looked amused. "You knew a messed up skitter girl was gonna steal the baby?"

"I don't have the..." Casey had to think of the right word. "The skills for this. My first night alone with Etta, she gets kidnapped. _Kidnapped_. Who'd have thought we'd have to worry about a kidnapping after aliens invaded?"

"Who'd have thought we'd have to set a whole city on fire?" Pope reminded her. "Crazy breeds crazy, always has."

"Why did you come with me?" Casey wondered out loud. "It's not 'cos I almost cried, is it?"

Pope gave her a hint of a smirk. "We played so much poker. All the hands I lost, had to give you something. And," he added. "I wouldn't mind seeing the look on Weaver's face when I show up with the baby he's got all his minions out looking for."

"So you'll think we'll find her?"

Pope nodded slowly. "We'll find her. You just gotta take all that crap in there," He tapped his temple. "And focus it on finding that kid."

A swift gust of wind accompanied the rain through the trees, scattering leaves into the water. The setting sun briefly shone through and glinted off the water, but it also illuminated something out of the corner of Casey's eye. It glimmered like a jewel in the sand, and was snagged on a log on the opposite side of the river. Something white. Paper.

The water was only ankle deep and considering she was soaked from the rain anyway, Casey didn't think twice about wading across the river. The paper was soaked, of course, and Casey had to sort of unwind it from the log so it wouldn't break into soggy pieces. But she already knew that she was looking at a label.

A baby formula label with number _1_ written on it in Anne's handwriting.

Anne had sorted the cans from earliest expiry date to latest, and then numbered them all so Casey wouldn't have to search for dates every time she got a new tin. The cans were then stored on the food truck, but the satchel Casey always carried, the one Abigail had stolen along with Etta, was stacked with only number _1_ tins.

Energized from the confirmation they were at least on the right side of the woods to be searching, Casey hurried back to the Berserkers to get right back out searching. But they weren't just looking anymore, they were listening. It was still raining, and there was no shelter aside from the trees. Etta and Abigail would be as soaked as Casey and the Berserkers were. So, Etta would be damp and miserable. And _man_, did that kid like to make sure everyone heard that she was miserable.

**xxx**


	10. Set Fire To The Rain

_AN - Second part to the last chapter, normally I don't post chapters so close together but I really wanted these read at the same time. Next chapter, we pick up with season 2 episodes :)  
_

**Chapter 10: Set Fire To The Rain**

The sun fully set and the flashlights came out. The Berserkers kept closer together, not wanting to get out of each other's line of sight. Casey shivered in her wet clothes, but didn't slow down. For whatever reason, the cold was having a soothing affect on her headache so it didn't pulse as much. Her wrist throbbed every time she took too heavy a step, but it was bearable. Casey was checking Anne's bandage was still secure when her feet suddenly crunched against gravel.

The sound took her by surprise since the past three hours had been spent squelching and sloshing through wet mud and grass. Pope was in step with Casey, and stopped when she did. He shone his flashlight to their left and right, revealing they had stumbled upon a gravel road. It was horizontal to them, and seemed just wide enough to fit a car through, but it definitely wasn't something the city had paved down.

"Should we follow it?" Pope asked as Lee and Tector arrived at the road. Boon and Lyle were just behind them.

"I say we keep going forwards," Lee shone her flashlight up ahead. "It's been working for us so far.

Casey's eyes followed Lee's flashlight beam across the road and into the woods ahead. The light landed on a very pale face that Casey recalled seeing in the woods the day before. When her eyes caught the light, the pale face flicked around and a flash of red hair disappeared into the trees. "Abigail!" Casey shouted and pushed off into a run. She cleared the gravel road in one and a half strides and then she was back in the sludge.

Behind her, Casey heard the pounding of the Berserker's following but she didn't dare look back and lose sight of Abigail. The girl's willowy figure darted between the trees, but she didn't have a lot of speed. "Abigail!" Casey shouted again. To her surprise, the girl stopped.

Abigail slowly turned around. With the moonlight illuminating her slight frame, Casey saw that Abigail had the satchel bag over her shoulder and a wriggling, whinging Etta bundled in her arms wrapped in her purple winter coat.

"I'm sorry," Abigail said tearfully. She looked so upset to see Casey. "I didn't want to hurt you, I really didn't."

"It's okay," Casey took a small step forwards. Etta was alright, even with just the moonlight Casey could see that. "Give her back, and you can go."

"She's okay, though, see?" Abigail lifted Etta to show her scrunched up little face to Casey. The baby grizzled, annoyed to have been awoken, and broke into a wail.

"I see that," Casey took another couple of steps towards her. In the periphery of her vision she saw Lee's mane of wiry hair bound behind a tree trunk, and Boon's flash of blonde hair up ahead. She knew Pope was behind her, and Tector and Lyle were on her left. They were encircling Abigail. "So, just give her back and we'll forget everything."

"Get that kid back _now_," Pope muttered from behind Casey as Etta's scream hit a higher pitch. "Skitters are gonna hear her howling."

"You don't know," Abigail said quietly, closing her arms tightly around Etta. "There is no one like me. No one."

"Abigail," Casey warned. Behind her she could hear the metal clicking of Pope's gun being raised, and she knew he wouldn't hesitate. "You give her back, right now."

"I'm not going to give her to them, I promise. I took her for me. I fed her every time she cried, and I wrapped her in my jacket to keep her dry," Abigail said with a shaky smile. "I didn't..." Abigail's face broke into tears. "I didn't want to be alone."

"Please." Casey said through clenched teeth. Her whole body was a rigid block of tension.

"Everyone sees my harness and thinks I'm with them," Abigail said. "But Etta doesn't look at me like all of you do. I made her laugh," she shook her head slowly, smiling fading and eyes pleading. "I didn't want to be alone."

Her young face was so heartbreaking, even to Casey. Her eyes screamed loneliness and desperation, a silent plea begging someone to accept her. "I know," Casey said. "I'm not screwing with you, I know. All you want is someone to take you as you are. No judgement. No questions..." Casey trailed off as an image of her smiling mother came to her mind. "I really haven't had that since my Mum died. But taking Etta is not-"

The Mech blast caught Casey's eye a second before it smashed into the treetops above her. Out of nowhere came the heavy, metal footsteps of approaching Mechs along with their trademark hum that vibrated through the night. Casey felt herself being pulled backwards and then thrust up against a tree trunk. Pope was pressing against her, telling her to shut up.

"Etta-"

"Ssh!" Pope hissed, cutting her off. He was pressed against Casey so close his beard grazed her cheek.

All Casey could hear was the thudding of the Mechs approaching. The ground shuddered underfoot and out of the corner of her eye Casey saw the bouncing blue lasers searching through the woods for something to fire upon.

Had they heard Casey yelling? Did they sense Abigail even with her broken harness? Was Etta still crying?

"How many?" Casey mouthed to Pope, who held up two fingers in reply.

The Mech footsteps ceased, but Casey could still hear the mechanical clanging of their movements. They were definitely searching. Casey desperately wanted to look behind her to see if Abigail was hiding, or to look ahead and see where exactly the Mechs were aiming their guns. But she didn't move. Then, everything seemed to happen at once.

Etta screamed, the Mech's began to shoot, and the Berserkers fired right back.

Pope pushed off Casey to join his crew in the fight, and unarmed Casey rounded the tree trunk looking for Abigail. Almost immediately, she spotted her red braid bobbing through the trees, running away with Etta again. Casey took off after her, trying to listen for Etta's cries. But she couln't hear anything above the peppering of bullets.

A huge explosion from behind knocked Casey forwards onto her knees. She fell on her wrist to break her fall, and though the bandage held its place, violent waves of pain shot through her body. A quick look over her shoulder confirmed that one of the Mechs had been disposed of, and the Berserker's were now relentlessly firing upon its mate.

Casey grunted as she got back to her feet and continued after Abigail. The ground suddenly vibrated and Casey stumbled on her feet again. Up ahead, a third Mech effortlessly carved through the trees right in front of Abigail's path. The girl froze. Casey could still see her braid. The Mech beams narrowed in on Abigails chest and it fired. The girl was dead before she slumped to the ground.

Casey couldn't scream, she couldn't react. She just stood there, staring at the lump on the ground that used to be Abigail. When a second explosion thundered through the forest behind her, Casey faltered on the spot but didn't fall. A wet heat burned her eyes, and despite her broken wrist, she clenched both her fists at her sides. If the third Mech saw her, she didn't notice.

A barrage of bullets rang passed Casey's ear and smacked right into the third Mech. Lee and Tector were coming up behind her. The sound of their guns along with the Mech firing sent her hearing into a numbed silence, and then a sharp ringing drilled a path around the insides of her skull.

Pope, Boon and Lyle arrived and added their weapons to the fight. The unrelenting torrent of bullets impacted the third Mech until it, too, went the way of its comrades. The blast scattered Mech debris in all directions and the ground shook underfoot. Casey lost her footing again, but kept herself upright as it rained Mech metal all around her. Her ears were still ringing, and she could feel hot cuts all over her body when the Mech metal sliced through her wet clothes and into her skin.

There were no whooping shouts of glee from the Berserkers over three triple Mech kill. In fact, Casey heard nothing at all except the rain splattering on the ground. And the ringing in her ear. Then she realized; that the ringing in her ears wasn't ringing at all. It was crying.

Casey turned towards the noise. Behind her on her right, lying in the grass in Abigail's too-small purple jacket with the satchel right beside her, was Etta.

"Etta?" Casey fumbled over to the baby, sure she was a mirage. When all the firing had begun, Casey had been so focused on Abigail's braid, she didn't notice the girl hadn't been carrying Etta. Abigail had left the baby safely in the grass, shielded by a fallen tree trunk, and then taken off before the Mech ended her run for freedom.

Casey didn't blink as she fell to her knees, crawled over to Etta and carefully lifted her up as if she were so fragile she might disintegrate. She was still so light and tiny, screaming just the same way as she always did. Casey felt inside Abigail's purple jacket and felt dry warmth. Etta wasn't soaked to the bone. Abigail really had been taking good care of her.

Then, sitting there in the dark, Casey wanted to scream. Her whole body shook as she fought to keep her lips tightly closed and stop the sobs from escaping her throat. She felt completely breathless, like she was twenty feet underwater and still sinking. Etta curled in against her body and Casey wrapped her up tighter so her lips were resting against the baby's forehead. She began muttering to Etta, telling her how sorry she was for losing her, when someone knelt down in front of her.

"She okay?" It was Crazy Lee who crouched down.

"Yeah," Casey's voice squeaked and she inhaled sharply to keep the sobs at bay. Then coughed to clear her throat. "Yeah, she's okay."

Lee peered inside the jacket at Etta, then gently reached out and ran her finger along the baby's cheek. "Course she's okay. Kid's a born Berserker."

**xxx**


	11. All Together Now

_AN - And so we head into season 2 episodes, good stuff shall happen. Enjoy! :) This chapter mentions the lovely Grace Mason, OC of the lovely Jemmz._

**Chapter 11: All Together Now**

_- two months later -_

The morning after Tom Mason returned, the 2nd Mass was still buzzing with excitement.

Upon watching Tom be carried into the medic bus the night before, Casey had been ushered away with everyone else by Weaver and had spent a restless night wondering how the hell Tom made it off an alien spaceship. From what had Grace told her, Tom had apparently just appeared right at the end of a skitter and Mech battle. The girl was so obviously frazzled at her father's sudden return, Casey didn't bug her about it further.

Casey awoke early to Etta's usual grizzling, but she managed to quiet her down with a bottle before she woke up Lee. Lee began rooming - or tenting - with Casey soon after they returned from the forest with Etta two months before. After helping bury Abigail by the river, Lee had suggested that Casey shift her tent over to the Berserkers side of the camp. That night, Casey moved her tent and Lee had moved right on in, quite happy to be rid of her former roommate, Lyle. The Berserkers weren't too thrilled about having a baby wake them up at all hours, but Casey felt a lot better with all those eyes on Etta.

Now three months old, Etta had transformed into a brand new little creature. She'd almost doubled in size, and her wrinkly pink skin had become soft and milky-white. Her hair had thickened and darkened to a golden brown colour. She looked more like a baby now, and less like the cooked chicken Casey had pictured when she'd laid her in the bathroom basin the first night out of Fitchburg.

Etta was learning, too. Currently, she was trying to get the hang of holding up her head, but she could only do it for a twenty seconds or so at a time. Casey tried to encourage her by putting her on her tummy and dangling a toy above her, but Etta just rolled onto her back and grabbed for the toy like a kitten would. Casey had also begun to notice that Etta seemed to recognize her. When Casey went to the basket in the mornings, Etta would look right at her, smile and kick out her legs. It never failed to make Casey smile right back.

After feeding, burping, and changing Etta, Casey bundled the baby in two blankets to combat the morning chill and went off to find a baby-sitter. Even with Tom Mason's return, Pope was still insisting on continuing their training.

Since they had run out of things to bet on in their poker matches, Casey and Pope had started offering favours as currency instead. Strictly non-sexual, non-dangerous favours. From last week's win, Casey had earned Pope teaching her to handle a gun. And though Pope maintained that this fell under the banner of dangerous, he agreed to give her lessons.

Learning to shoot was something Casey had always intended on doing with the 2nd Mass. But now that she had Etta, people seemed to assume that was her "job". However, after everything that happened with Abigail, and now that her broken wrist had healed, Casey knew she had to be prepared if something happened again. And the fact that everyone kind of expected her _not_ to learn was a surprisingly effective motivational tool.

But Pope had his rules that Casey begrudgingly agreed to follow, and rule number one? No kids allowed.

Down by the river's edge washing their clothes, Casey found Maggie and Hal. Normally, when she "trained" with Pope, Casey left Etta with Grace. But with Tom's sudden return, Casey didn't want to bother her. So, she went to her second choice. "Morning!" She greeted the pair brightly. Best to start off in a good mood considering she was looking to employ Maggie as a babysitter for a few hours.

"Morning," Maggie replied over her shoulder, smiling when she saw Etta.

"How's your dad?" Casey asked Hal as Etta gummed down on her thumb.

Hal gave her a who-knows shrug. "He flickers in and out of it," Hal said. "Grace and Matt are with him now in case he wakes up again."

"Has he said anything?" Casey inquired. "About where he was? How he got away?"

"No," Hal replied sharply, squeezing water out of his t-shirt. "Probably best to wait 'til he's out of the woods before we interrogate him."

Whether or not the harshness in his voice was meant for her, Casey didn't question him further. Instead, she focused on Maggie. "Hey, can you look after this?" Casey held out Etta, who was sucking her whole fist. "Just for an hour or so?"

"Why?" Maggie gave her an odd look and smiled. "You got a date or something?"

"Weapons 101 with Professor Pope."

Maggie's smile faltered. She slapped her hands dry on her jeans as she stood up. "That's still going on?"

"Yeah, it goes on until I carry a gun. But I can't take this," Casey wiggled Etta a little in front of Maggie. "Will you please watch her? She loves you so much, she tells me all the time how you're her fav-"

"Oh, shut up," Maggie plucked Etta out of Casey's hands. "Fine, I'll watch her."

"Thank you," Casey said, and then headed for her training session. It was no secret to Casey that Maggie wasn't a fan of Pope, or a fan of Casey taking lessons from him, but Casey trusted her own judgement and didn't have any reservations.

It had been when Maggie had witnessed one of Casey's epic defeats of Pope at poker that she had pulled her aside, and suggested that she be careful around Pope. This wasn't news to Casey, it was something Maggie had mentioned to her before. Despite being the younger of the two of them, Maggie apparently saw it as her duty to warn Casey about him.

Maggie's history with Pope was as clear as mud. Maggie was the only remaining member of Pope's original, pre-Berserker gang. And whatever had happened back then remained a mystery to Casey, all she had to go off was the tension between Pope and Maggie.

It clearly wasn't jealousy, a stranger could look at Hal and Maggie and see how besotted they were with each other. Casey trusted Maggie, to the point that she was one of a very limited number of people Casey would recruit to watch Etta. But Maggie never elaborated on her warning of "be careful". Casey knew Pope had been in prison, he liked to drink, and he was an arrogant jerk, she figured that's what Maggie was referring to. If Maggie thought Casey was in serious danger, Casey was positive she would say so.

* * *

"This is your target," Pope lectured, knocking his fist against the trunk of a thick Oak tree about fifteen feet away from where Casey stood. On the trunk, Pope had drawn a skitter head in bright blue chalk. "Skitter brain. All it takes is one good shot."

After spending most of their early lessons learning how to load her revolver, Casey was now learning the ropes of firing. Pope was oddly strict about his study plan. "And what if my target has limbs, what do I do then?"

"Don't sass me, Taylor," Pope pointed his stick of blue chalk in her direction as he walked back and stood safely behind her. "How's your stance?"

"Feet shoulder-width apart," Casey recited. "Two hands on the gun: I'm not a gangster."

Pope gave her a nod of approval. "Now take a shot."

Casey exhaled to calm her nerves. The 2nd Mass was a resistance group of survivors, gunfire was part of the package. Casey was used to the crack of firing rifles or the blast of a shotgun, but pulling back on the trigger herself was a different story.

It wasn't the noise that made Casey jump as much as the shuddering recoil of the gun in her hands. For a split second, she was ten-years-old again catching one of her father's hefty tosses of a baseball. It was the similar feeling of sudden heat smacking her palm, and the subsequent prickling feeling like her hands were just recovering from being numb. Briefly, she imagined her father watching her learn to shoot, gruffly shouting his encouragement.

The sharp smell of gunfire brought Casey out of her memory. The gun was still pointed right at the tree, but her bullet had definitely missed the chalk skitter head. She glanced over at Pope, he didn't look impressed.

"You're still too tense," Pope stood beside Casey and pulled both her arms out straighter. "Keep these straight, but not taut. And don't grip the gun," He repositioned the pistol in her right hand. "It's a bad habit, you squeeze too tight at the wrong time, you nudge the trigger and blow your own head off." He took two steps back. "Try again."

Casey fired a second shot. She tried to keep her eyes on the bullet trajectory, but she lost it almost immediately. However, she was pretty sure she heard the bullet cutting through the forest. But then again, it was windy. Her third and fourth shots went the same way as the first two, but her fifth managed to hit the trunk - a good two feet above the skitter head.

"Huh," Casey turned to Pope with high eyebrows. "Better, right?" Pope remained unenthusiastic. "Think you could teach without the attitude?"

"Think you could learn without the attitude?"

Casey grinned to herself. "Hey, if I'm not learning right, you're not teaching right." She attempted to fire the revolver again, but it just clicked empty so she took a seat on the log behind her to reload. That was one thing she managed to get the hang of pretty quickly. "So, how was the hunt? Before Tom's miraculous return, I mean."

"Skitter guts flying every which way," Pope shrugged, a satisfied smile crossing his lips.

"Aw, then you had fun," Casey counted out enough bullets for her gun and loaded them into the chamber one by one. "What do you think about Tom coming back?" Casey looked up, noting the unsettled expression that took over his face. "You don't look so thrilled to see him again."

"Man steps onto an alien rocket then just happens to show up right three months later, right where we're fighting a bunch of Mechs and Skitters?" He gave a dismissive shake of his head. "Serendipitous, right?"

Casey chewed her bottom lip. She didn't much care for the timing of Tom's return either. But then again, Grace had shown up days after she was thought to have been lost. Mason blood was tough like that. Hopefully when Tom recovered, he could shed some light on it all and ease everyone's suspicions. It definitely wasn't just Casey and Pope who had questions.

The uncertainty of it all, however, did make Casey more eager to learn how to shoot. She slid the last bullet in, slapped the chamber back into place and got back up into position. "How the heck am I supposed to stay relaxed in the middle of a gunfight?"

"Practice," Pope took the revolver from Casey's hand. "Eventually, it becomes second nature." He casually pointed the gun one-handed at the skitter head and fired. It splintered the tree trunk right between the skitters chalk eyes.

"Improper stance," Casey commented, annoyed when he turned to her looking smug. She wondered if this was how he felt when she owned him at poker. Annoyed that she was being bested, and annoyed that she was still having fun.

"Call it an expert's luxury," Pope said nonchalantly, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "You have poker," He aimed the revolver at the tree again. "I have guns."

"Fine, make it again?" Casey waited until he put his finger on the trigger. "And I'll blow you."

Pope looked at her, startled, at the exact moment he pulled back on the trigger. The bullet disappeared into the forest the same as most of Casey's had, leaving the chalk skitter with just the one head wound.

"Shame," Casey patted his shoulder and took the gun out of his hands, trying her best not to laugh at the surprised look on his face. "I don't offer twice."

Feet shoulder width apart, two hands on the gun, Casey was preparing to shoot again when the sudden rise in voices from the 2nd Mass caught her attention. Turning, she saw everyone gathering around the medic bus. There was Tom Mason, smiling and up on his feet.

**xxx**


	12. Mistaken Identity

_AN - This chapter contains a brief appearance from the lovely Grace Mason, OC of the lovely Jemmz._

* * *

**Chapter 12: Mistaken Identity**

After two months nestled in their camp under the bridge, the 2nd Mass were going to be up and moving again.

Weaver called for a camp meeting to announce they were all going to pack up and move forwards. He didn't elaborate on a reason as to why now was the time to leave, he just told everyone to start packing and to be ready to move in the next day or two.

Casey stood amongst her fellow members of the 2nd Mass with Etta in her arms. It seemed that everyone had turned out to this meeting, but the very obvious person missing was Tom Mason. His kids were all there standing right at the front of the crowd, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. Casey wasn't "in" with Weaver, she could hazard a guess that he still didn't know her full name, so she knew if she asked him why they were leaving he would just stonewall her. But the fact that Tom had literally _just_ returned, and now they were packing up and moving on was way too coincidental for Casey's liking.

Weaver dismissed the 2nd Mass, and everyone dispersed. Packing really didn't mean a hell of a lot of stress to Casey. All her stuff was already pretty much packed anyway. Since joining the 2nd Mass, she had grown accustomed to living out of her bags without unloading all their contents. It wasn't like she had shelves or drawers to stock.

It took Casey all of ten minutes to gather all her stuff together with Etta's and have it sitting at the end of her camp bed. It was about time for Etta to take a nap, but the baby seemed to have decided she didn't want to sleep. Every time Casey attempted to set her down in her basket, she would wriggle and cry out until Casey picked her up again. There was a heck of a lot of chattering outside the tent with everyone energized about the move. Noise never seemed to bother Etta much before, the 2nd Mass was never a quiet place to be, but for some reason Etta had decided that on this day it was much too loud for her to sleep.

Wrapping Etta in a blanket to combat the chill in the air, Casey carried her outside with the hope that once the baby realized it was warmer inside the tent and within her basket, she might just go to sleep. That naive hope was dashed given the person approaching Casey at that moment.

"Yo!" Crazy Lee's jubilant yell broke into Casey's thoughts as fell into step beside her. "Hey, MB," Lee pretended to fist bump with the baby. Etta gurgled, and dribbled down her chin.

"Please, call her Etta," Casey reminded Lee as she wiped off the dribble with her thumb. "She doesn't need another nickname."

"But MB's badass. Mini Berserker?" Lee grinned proudly. "Coming up with that is one of my post-invasion highlights." From her inner jacket pocket, Lee pulled two granola bars. "Here, I snagged these from Lyle."

Casey took a granola bar and unwrapped it one handed. "Lyle has a food stash?"

Lee smirked. "He thinks I don't know about it, but I know."

A redheaded woman whom Casey recognized as one of the food preparation crew bustled straight between Casey and Lee with her arms full of water bottles. She gave them a brief apology but didn't slow down. She wasn't the only one, people were rushing all over with bags and boxes, dismantling tents and folding up card tables.

"Weaver tell you why we're leaving all of a sudden?" Casey asked Lee.

Lee shook her head. "But I overheard him telling Mason he thinks the skitters and Mechs are prepping to swarm in on us like in Fitchburg."

Casey faltered in her steps. Etta suddenly became very heavy. "He thinks that'll happen again?"

Lee shrugged, not visibly concerned. "Better to move than to wait and see. Just gotta find a way over the river."

"So why can't we use this bridge?" Casey nodded up at the bridge that had served them well as cover for the past two months.

"It heads straight for the city and there's no cover along the roadway," Lee said with a mouthful of granola. "We might as well honk the horns and holler at the aliens as we drive through. We gotta head," she pointed in the opposite direction. "That way."

Just ahead of their path, Tector struggled past trying to carry a toolbox, two tire irons, his rifle and his shotgun. "Hey Craze," He said when he saw her. "Help me with these."

Lee stuffed the last of her granola bar in her mouth, took the tool box from Tector's arms and followed him towards his rusted up car. Casey walked on but a scratchy sounding tune suddenly caught Casey's ear. It took her a second to identify the source because it had been quite a while since she'd heard that noise. A car radio. Playing an old song.

"_Turn around, bright eyes. Every now and then I fall apart..._"

"Since when does your radio work?" Casey couldn't hide her excitement as she approached Tector's car, lifting Etta up against her shoulder as she walked. A working car radio seemed like such a luxury.

"Since I figured that it wasn't broken in there," Tector pointed to the inside of the car where he was setting down his guns. "But that it was a loose wire under the hood. Got me some duck tape, fixed it right up."

"Yeah, when the car is stationary," Pope called out. Casey hadn't seen him, he was hunched down behind Tector's car working on his bike. "Second he turns over the engine in that hunk of crap, it cuts out."

"Still. The radio don't pick up anything, so I gotta play it old school," Tector reached into the car and pulled a water damaged shoebox from under the passenger's side up onto the driver's seat for Casey to see.

"Tapes?" Casey adjusted her one handed grip on Etta and reached through the window. The shoebox was full of cracked plastic cassette cases with handwritten labels. "Oh my God, takes me right back. I used to get so depressed when you overplayed it and it warped the song."

"That's why I plan to use them wisely," Tector said. "'Til I find a working car with a working CD player. And actual CD's that aren't smashed or scratched to hell."

"He insists on playing the crappy tapes," Lee told Casey nodding at the wailing coming from the radio. "Wants to use them up first."

Tector gave her an almost incredulous look. "Bonnie ain't crappy."

"She sounds like she's being strangled." Casey said. She was attempting to decipher writing on the cassettes but didn't see anything familiar. "You didn't find any Janis Joplin? That's at least a strangle with talent."

"Or some Bobby Dylan?" Lee added. "Man, what I wouldn't _give,_" She let her head fall back and grinned up at the sky. "To hear that man sing Shelter From The Storm again. When all this is over, he should do some sort of I Survived An Alien Invasion tour."

"Not this again," Tector shook his head and disappeared under the hood of his car. "Lee, there is no way that guy is still kicking."

"Dylan is alive!" Lee argued as she sorted through the toolbox. "He's hold up in a mineshaft in Minnesota rewriting his protest songs into war ballads. Duvall heard one of his broadcasts over that set he built."

"That set don't even work," Tector said. "He only hears broadcasts when he's alone."

"Wait, Duvall?" Casey repeated, Lee Tector over Etta's head. "Isn't he the guy who collects tin cans because he says he likes the smell?"

"He's a savant," Lee explained. "He's got kooky ways, but he's legit."

"Dammit!" Pope swore loudly and jumped up shaking his hand like he'd touched a hot stove.

"What?" Casey turned to him. "Did you break a nail?"

"Yeah," He held up his palm. Blood was pouring out of a gash in the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. "Crappy wrench slipped." He tossed the offending tool back into his toolbox with a clunk and started poking the cut with his finger.

"That's a great way to get an infection," Lourdes said as she walked over from the medic bus. She snatched Pope's hand and looked at the cut. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to poke a cut in your skin? Unless, of course, you _want_ an infection?"

"Thought it might get her to come over here," Pope looked over Lourdes head and smirked at Casey. "Kiss it better."

Casey rolled her eyes and swivelled her top half to rock Etta back and forth. "And yet I'm still all the way over here."

"Dammit!" Pope winced as Lourdes poured antiseptic over his cut.

Lourdes smiled sweetly. "Sorry."

"Don't think this gets you out of weapon training," Pope said to Casey.

"No, 'cos you only need one hand to tell me I'm a crap shot."

Pope looked unimpressed with her sarcasm. "So, what's the deal with the Professor?" He asked Lourdes.

"What do you mean?" The young doctor said.

"Just kinda figured he'd give us all an oral history on alien interrogation techniques," Pope bit his lip as Lourdes blotted off the antiseptic on his wound. "But all we get is brooding silence."

"I'm a medic," Lourdes finished securing a bandage on his hand. "Not a shrink."

"Ha-ha," Casey grinned as Lourdes walked off towards Jamil. "She doesn't like you."

Pope flicked his hair out of his eyes and gave her a half-smile. "But you like me, don't you?"

"Go back to your bike," Casey looked down at Etta, who still wasn't sleeping. "She won't reject you."

A chorus of bike engines ripped through the air, and the blurs of Hal, Grace, Maggie and Dai zoomed past. "Scouts are back!" Pope called out, slamming the lid of his toolbox closed. "Let's hope they found a way across that damn river."

"Hey, Casey?" Anthony rolled another bike towards Pope's and kicked down the stand. "Are you busy?" A former narcotics police officer, Anthony was a highly trusted member of Weaver's scouting team. Back during the assault on the alien command tower in central Boston, Pope had carried Anthony's unconscious body out of danger. That act had caused some sort of thin bond to form between the two men, it was clearly something Anthony felt indebted to Pope for. He was honourable that way.

"I'm getting this ready for a nap," Casey said swaying Etta in his direction. "And then I planned on taking a nap myself. What's up?"

"Tom wants to talk to you. He's in Weaver's tent"

Casey's brow wrinkled, and she was struck with a nervous feeling from her childhood that she was in trouble for some reason. "Me? Why?"

Anthony gave her a friendly shrug as he went to join the Berserkers and the scouts. "Just passing along a message."

Chewing her lower lip, Casey briskly headed for Weaver's tent. It was a space generally reserved for the scouts, not at all a 2nd Mass thoroughfare. And as Casey walked in she could see why. Maps were spread out over card tables, weapons were lined up against beds in one corner, and half the mattresses were weighted down with ammunition.

Etta made a noise, alerting their presence to Tom who looked up from the map he was focused on. "Casey," Tom gave her a warm, but tired, smile. "It's good to see you again."

"You too," Casey smiled but she knew it must have looked weird because her jaw was clenched tight. "Anthony said you wanted to talk to me?"

Tom looked briefly clueless. "Oh, yeah, nothing serious. I didn't mean right this second. Matt was reading to me from his journal. Your name came up a lot after what he wrote about Fitchburg. He has a lot of nice things to say about you. He likes you a lot."

Casey kept biting her lip. He certainly sounded like Tom Mason, but who knew what had happened to him on that ship? "Well, he's been a great help." Casey said. "He's a natural with Etta."

"Charlotte." Tom nodded, looking down at the baby but apparently not confused by the nickname. "I heard about Sarah, about everything that happened in Fitchburg. I'm sorry."

His apology took Casey off guard. She hadn't known Sarah that well at all, it seemed odd to receive condolences for her death. Casey wasn't sure what to say, so she just nodded and gave him what she hoped was a polite smile.

"Dad?" Grace suddenly stuck her head inside the tent. She looked frazzled. "We got a problem."

"Is everything okay?" Casey asked.

Grace checked behind her to make sure no one was close by, and leaned in closer to her father and Casey. "Beamers blew up the bridge," she said quietly. "Well, they tried to. Dai took them down before it was totally destroyed. But it's got a hole in it.

"Great," Tom rubbed the back of his neck and headed out of the tent with his daughter. "Let's get Weaver."

Grace hung back as her father passed her. "You're getting good at that," She said, then she turned to follow her father and let the tent flap fall closed.

Casey looked down at Etta. Despite Casey's walking, talking with Lee, Tector and Pope, then Tom, Etta had fallen asleep with her little mouth hanging open. Afraid she would wake Etta by simply walking out of the tent, Casey lowered herself onto one of the empty camp-beds. Problems with the bridge would have to wait until after naptime.

**xxx**


End file.
